Fabrication Techniques Using Myco-Materials

if we go back 450 million years ago we'd find giant fungi the size of large buildings.

i can't believe this paper didn't cover mycotronics.

also it fails to mention that mushrooms are natures chemists, given sufficient time the can be trained or bio-hacked to breakdown & digest almost anything. the 5th kingdom they are not plants! they emit co2 and consume oxygen.

myco-chitin is a ridiculously interesting in terms of it's tensile strength to weight ratio outperforming virtually all composites including kevlar. the chitin material is a dilectric and can be impregnated with wire strands or other conductive metals to make very interesting unparalleled e-fabrics out of myco-leather.

the "gap" is that mushrooms aren't farmed for aerospace applications, and most of what you find at a farmers market will be either small batch cultivated or more commonly discovered by humans (probably hippies) who spend time wandering through a large forest.

the reality is mushrooms are renewable resources, they can at scale compete effectively with cellulose, and everything you know about useful cellulose -- mushrooms are at least 100x better, but it's easier to cut down a tree than grow a mushroom the size of one.

also the mushrooms require a complex fabrication system and most of the processes we see today are proof of concept, very manual, lacking sufficient automation to compete with plastic & cellulose (so they appeal mostly for novelty, not value).

yes - i've got my own applications in development. no, i won't tell you.

“Close but no cigar?”

It is an interesting idea but not very useful at the moment

Certainly a neat idea. But when I go to the farmer's market, mushrooms are relatively expensive per pound. Why not use something cheaper like, say, corn cobs that must be much cheaper.