Mushroom Computers: A Revolution That Promises

This is a curious story that seems to lead us back to Last of usbecause again the main characters are mushrooms, but this time not connected with infections, deaths or pandemics, but with the creation of computers.

The Unconventional Computing Lab at the University of the West of England in Bristol, UK has been working on mushroom computing since 2001.

In fungal computers, the mycelium, the branching web-like root structure of the fungus, acts as conductors as well as the electronic components of the computer. They can receive and send electrical signals, as well as store memory.

“I mix mycelium cultures with hemp or wood shavings and then put them in covered plastic boxes and let the mycelium populate the substrate to make everything look white,” says Andrew Adamacki, director of the Unconventional Computing Lab. “Then we inserted electrodes and recorded the electrical activity of the mycelium. Thus, through stimulation, it is converted into electrical activity, and then we get a response. He notes that this is the only wet lab in the UK to have chemical, liquid or biological substances present in any computer science department.

Mushroom computers may offer some advantages over regular computers. While they can never match the speed of today’s machines, they can be more fault-tolerant (they can self-repair), reconfigurable (they grow and develop naturally), and consume very little power.

Adamacki adds: “We found that mushrooms produce bursts that are similar to action potentials. The same spikes that neurons produce,” he says. “We are the first laboratory to report fungal activity measured with microelectrodes and the first to develop fungal computing and fungal electronics.”

Until now, they worked with oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus Jamor), ghost mushrooms (Omphaloth nidiformis), tinders (Ganoderma resinous), enoki mushrooms (flammulina velutipes), double gill mushrooms (commune of schizophyllum) and caterpillar mushrooms (Cordyceps military).