Not everyone is like in The Last of Us: a fungus that can replace plastic

Mushrooms are in fashion, although not in the best way, because. The last of us turned them into a cause for concern. However, in reality, the Mushroom Kingdom has many advantages.

and now fungus fomes fomentarius is the focus of a new study published today in the journal Scientific achievements. It has a remarkable ability to produce a wide range of materials with different properties, from soft and spongy to hard and woody, for example to replace plastic.

Pejman Mohammadi, co-author of the new paper and senior researcher at the VTT Technical Research Center in Finland, commented on this mushroom:

“We were really surprised by the structure, because one thing that you will immediately notice if you are a biologist is that when something so beautiful starts to form, nature just doesn’t do it because of how beautiful it is, it has should be a function.

The uniqueness of this mushroom is that it has three layers with different properties that can be useful in different ways. There is a very strong outer shell that can be used, for example, to make a high-impact coating for windshields. Then, according to Mohammadi, there is a soft intermediate layer that feels good on the skin and can mimic leather. The third inner layer is like a tree. The research team used advanced imaging techniques and mechanical stability tests to examine each layer and evaluate its potential use.