Cyborg Mushroom Moves On Its Own
Cornell University researchers tired of waiting for evolution recently taught a fungus how to walk—sort of. Using fungal mycelia from a King Oyster mushroom, the researchers created a new biohybrid robot capable of sensing its environment and moving accordingly. The cyborg mushroom used the mycelia’s innate electrical signals and resembles Thing from the Addams Family. It has four finger-like “legs” and a truncated cylinder on top holding the mycelia.
Moving The Robot Mushrooms
Thanks to The Last of Us, many people now think the most likely doomsday scenario involves fungus taking over the world. “What about the roboapocalypse?” you might ask. Was that just a Hollywood fever dream cooked up by James Cameron and the Wachowskis?
Don’t worry. Scientists have found a way to combine both nightmares into one big nope. Allow us to present the cyborg mushroom.
Researchers exposed the fungal cells to multiple inputs, like ultraviolet light, which caused them to react. These reactions, in turn, moved the robot’s four fingerlike appendages, causing it to “walk” across a flat surface.
Through several experiments the researchers successfully demonstrated the possibility of using the cyborg mushroom’s electrophysiological activity to turn environmental cues into directives. These directives can then be used to move the robot in the desired direction.
Practical Applications
“By growing mycelium into the electronics of a robot, we were able to allow the biohybrid machine to sense and respond to the environment,” explains researcher Rob Shepherd, a materials scientist at Cornell.
Shepherd explained how this cyborg mushroom could be applied to the real world in the future.
Similar biohybrid robots could be used to sense the soil chemistry in crops and decide to add components such as fertilizer as needed. These machines could potentially eliminate adverse effects on agriculture like algal blooms.
A Rich World To Explore
Most people consider wild mushrooms a nuisance or worse—a potential world-ender—but the Fungi kingdom is ripe with scientific possibilities. Spores, molds, and fungi grow where other life can’t and require little outside help to do so, making them a researcher’s best friend.
Fungi contain a veritable cornucopia of different living components suitable for pretty much any sensory or computational scenario scientists can develop.
Fungal Networks
Though the average person can’t see it, whole networks of fungal threads travel through the soil, reacting to changes in their surroundings as they look for food. Many species of fungi “crackle with transmembrane activity” that mimics our own firing neurons. As if a cyborg mushroom wasn’t scary enough, now we have to worry about them having brains, too.
So Far, The RoboMushrooms Are On Our Side
Meanwhile this isn’t the first time living tissue has been placed inside a robot body—though it might be the creepiest. Previous experiments have included an AI worm brain placed in a Lego robot, which, come to think of it, might actually be creepier.
Now that we know worms have brains, too, we can’t decide what’s worse: a world overrun with bionic worm soldiers or cyborg mushroom warriors. Maybe humankind will win the apocalypse lottery and get both?
Whether future mushroom robots turn out to be good biohybrids like the Six Million Dollar man and the Bionic Woman or evil cyborgs like the Terminator remains to be seen. Thankfully the current hand-shaped fungus robot appears to be friendly…for now.
Source: Science Robotics
