PieFedEngineers gave a mushroom a robot body and let it run wild
ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝www.independent.co.uk/tech/robot-mushroom-biohy…
Nobody knows what sleeping mushrooms dream of when their vast mycelial networks flicker and pulse with electrochemical responses akin to those of our own brain cells.
But given a chance, what might this web of impulses do if granted a moment of freedom?
An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Cornell University in the US and the University of Florence in Italy took steps to find out, putting a culture of the edible mushroom species Pleurotus eryngii (also known as the king oyster mushroom) in control of a pair of vehicles, which can twitch and roll across a flat surface.
Through a series of experiments, the researchers showed it was possible to use the mushroom’s electrophysiological activity as a means of translating environmental cues into directives, which could, in turn, be used to drive a mechanical device’s movements.
“By growing mycelium into the electronics of a robot, we were able to allow the biohybrid machine to sense and respond to the environment,” says senior researcher Rob Shepherd, a materials scientist at Cornell.
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ummthatguyKnowing humanity, we’ll hit Last of Us zombies long before the spore drive.
DominusOfMegadeusAnd they’ll be coming for us on their insanely fast robot spider legs that we built for them for some fucking reason
Flying SquidThere is something about the idea of fungus given that sort of agency that I find incredibly disturbing.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCAI really hate to break this to you, but:
Yeah, but that’s not really the same thing. That’s more following basic programming: get the ant to the top of the leaf. This feels different to me.
Not that cordyceps isn’t also creepy…
The idea that it mind controls the ant into its death is creepy as fuck to me. It’s this kind of thing that, if it ever made the jump to infecting humans, would probably wipe out the species.
Sure, but now imagine it can run toward you in order to infect you.
I wonder how much these results would also apply to making random connections between sensors or actuator signals and our brains. Like if we hooked up a microphone, to the brain, would we hear through it similarly to how we hear through our ears? If the microphone was stationarity, would our awareness expand to always include audio awareness of the location the mic is in, or would it just confuse audio processing from our ears? Would it go through the same audio processing “circuitry” as our ears, or would the brain develop a new channel?
And then the same question but this time a camera instead of a mic. And maybe that camera can see a wider spectrum than our eyes can, if we could see through that camera, would we see new colours or would our existing colours just get remapped?
Did the mushroom learn to control a robot, or did the scientists figure out how to connect a robot to a mushroom in such a way as to make the regular processes happening inside the mushroom trigger a set of robot legs? Because the article makes it seem like the mushroom is intelligent and has agency, and was thus far only lacking the proper robot body in order to express that; but the video makes it look like the legs were all pumping in unison, and the resulting movement was more or less coincidental.
LadyAutumnThe article actually explains that the mushroom is essentially being hijacked for some of its sensory abilities, like light and heat. The mushroom is connected to an electronic circuit. The electronics make decisions about what to do based on the mushrooms’ sensory observations.
It’s a clickbait title, but the article does clarify.
UsernameblankfaceRobot uses mushrooms as living sensor would have intrigued me
Right? Why lie. Using mushrooms as a living sensor is cool as hell. Mushrooms can span miles through mycelium with multiple fruiting bodies. If you could take input from one body and get information from all the fruiting bodies that could be a cool way to get aggregate data across an area with little effort. Especially since mushrooms can grow in irradiated or otherwise dangerous locations.
It just using mushrooms as a sensor. The mushroom senses light, that causes an electrical response in the mycelium, electronics sense that electric signal and use it as a trigger to perform whatever.
The cool part comes from these living components added to robots having the potential to be better and cheaper than the regular tools we use for the job but unfortunately no sentient mushroom robots to party with yet.
The mushroom learned to ride a Gundam with the determination of revenging humans for the damage we have done to mother earth. Trust me bro I’m the scientists.
I would more think of the fungus from The Last Of Us. This fungus really exists (maybe not to this scale pictured) and it controls ants after infecting them. It directly controls their muscles, while growing a fruit body out of the ant’s head.
The fungus senses light and humidity. Therefor it climbs plants up and down. The ant is just a vehicle, like a robot body.
francisfordpoopolaDamn. Why didn’t you say that sooner. Now I understand how it works! Thank you.
devfuuuSo this is how the end of humany starts. Fungi with robot bodies…
Like this, just more spores then arms and legs…
ZMonsterHow could Last of Us get any scarier? Make all the infected also the corrupted machines from Horizon Zero Dawn. Awesome.
Brave Little Hitachi WandThey should give the robot suction cup feet so it can walk on my-ceiling-um. Myceli- er, nevermind.
Almost stuck the landing on that one, I guess you didn’t give yourself mushroom, but points for being a good spore(t).
I tip my cap to both of you
Ergotamine set of puns there, amanita minute to catch up.
BeatTakeshi
BlueTardis
Diplomjodler“Mushroom given robot body” is a better story than “cordyceps mutated”.
melroy
OtterCombining this mobility with the fungi’s ability to sense chemical and biological signals could prove useful in a range of applications, according to the researchers.
“By growing mycelium into the electronics of a robot, we were able to allow the biohybrid machine to sense and respond to the environment,” said Rob Shepherd, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell.
Maybe someday my houseplant could get up for a drink of water in the middle of the night.
Assuming this tech isn’t limited to mushrooms
Mushrooms walking in one’s house at night can bring new meaning to the phrase “tripping on shrooms.”"
TurtlePower
CaveThe reminds me of Levi from the show Scavengers Reign
kamenLady.They look absolutely adorable. Now give them a way to synthesize their impulses into speech, so they can speak.
It would imagine them saying stuff like:
go go go go go aai yes
nocturne
Now give it a gun so it can have some real fun!
LaunchesKayaks
Next on the docket: Give a shrimp some hands and a wok.
You’re telling me that a Shrimp fried this rice?
Shrimp fried thia rice ?
Celery with hook hands.
I agree with Nick.
I am violently opposed to everything they’ve said there!
Someone already tried it
Given how humans have been running things, I, for one, welcome our new mycelial overlords
Great, this one just got worse
It’s human enginuity to give legs to things that really shouldn’t get legs. We’re about to make mandmade horrors beyond human comprehension.
We’re too good at killing things now, we need a challenge, so we’re making our own.
They put a wrong kind of mushroom in charge. Surely it should have been a magic one, and they’d had a proper party.
Shiitake!
Quality shiitpost.
Next, on Star Trek - Discovery.
The Mushroom then danced around the room, cause he’s a funghi.
Well I for one welcome our new fungoid overlords…
I’ve always kind of looked at our own nervous system as kind of fungus-ish. Maybe animals are what happens. It’s the only thing that’s really aware that of all the other parts.
this is how you get zergs. but you need to spawn more overlords first regurgitation sounds
Zergs are purely biological, this is more 40k ORK territory
MEKBOI SAIZ WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!
hive mind and mushrooms sound very compatible though
WELL SURE, BUT BOIZ R SHROOM N BOIZ 'AVE TEK
prototype Guardian
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