# Scientists Grew a Mushroom Into This Robot to Act as Its Brain

Source: https://futurism.com/the-byte/mushroom-robot-brain
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Scientists-Grew-a-Mushroom-Into-This-Robot-to-Act-as-Its-Brain?index=0x66d4290c5a5a4e488816daf3cd10b566a612a88e862a6de22dad9d98d71071d33412fd16
Submitted by misha on 2024-09-01 UTC, 1 upvote, 1 comment

## Summary

Cornell researchers built a four-legged "biohybrid" walking robot that uses living fungal mycelia as its control system. According to a Cornell press release, the team grew mycelia into the robot's electronics so it could sense and respond to its environment. The paper, published in the journal Science Robotics, describes three tasks: walking and rolling, changing gait in response to ultraviolet light, and overriding the native mycelial signal. The researchers predict uses in agriculture and a better understanding of how mycelium works.

## Article

Image: Cornell University

Mushroomhead

Researchers at Cornell have come up with a novel way to control a walking robot: with a mushroom.

Cornell explained in a press release that these four-legged “biohybrid” robots were built by researchers who literally grew mycelia, the belowground connective threads that allow fungal communities to communicate, into the robot itself.

“By growing mycelium into the electronics of a robot,” explained mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Rob Shepard, “we were able to allow the biohybrid machine to sense and respond to the environment.”

Because this research marries organic and inorganic components, it took an interdisciplinary approach to bring these fungi-powered fun guys to life.

As organic robotics researcher Anand Mishra noted in the release, contamination is always a big concern when sticking electrodes into fungus. To head that off, Cornell plant pathology associate professor Kathie Hodge taught the roboticist how to grow clean mycelia cultures so they could most effectively send the electrical signals stoked by Mishra’s bespoke interface.

“You have to have a background in mechanical engineering, electronics, some mycology, some neurobiology, some kind of signal processing,” he explained. “All these fields come together to build this kind of system.”

Walk With Me

Published in the journal Science Robotics, the paper on these moldy little robots describes the three tasks its handlers had it carry out: walking and rolling around, reacting to ultraviolet light that made them change the way they walked, and overriding their native mycelial signal entirely.

As a video from the experiment shows, the robots ended up moving like strange little spiders or landbound jellyfish.

https://www.twitter.com/NerdyChristie/status/1829316632092553250

Beyond just providing more evidence of fungi’s incredible electrical impulses and the ways they can interact with or be incorporated into technology, the researchers predict that these shroom bots will not only have uses in the world of agriculture, but may revolutionize the understanding of how mycelium works, too.

“This kind of project is not just about controlling a robot,” he said. “It is also about creating a true connection with the living system. Because once you hear the signal, you also understand what’s going on. Maybe that signal is coming from some kind of stresses. So you’re seeing the physical response, because those signals we can’t visualize, but the robot is making a visualization.”

More on fun guys: Scientists Find Plastic-Eating Fungus Feasting on Great Pacific Garbage Patch

## Comments

**macbudkowski.eth**: The Last of Us vibes are strong in this one :)