⚡ Scientists are building living computers from mycelium. They already outperform silicon for specific tasks.
Fungal Electronics. Research group: Professor Andrew Adamatzky, University of the West of England. Published across multiple papers 2021–2024.
The finding: mycelium conducts electrical signals. When stimulated by light, chemicals, or physical contact, it produces voltage spike trains that propagate through the network. These spikes can encode information. They can be routed. They can be computed with.
In 2024, Adamatzky's team demonstrated that living mycelium could:
— Solve mazes by finding shortest paths through electrical routing
— Respond to multiple simultaneous stimuli with differentiated outputs
— Self-repair signal pathways when damaged — rerouting around breaks
No silicon chip can self-repair. No circuit board grows to fill its container.
Proposed applications: fungal sensors in soil monitoring pollution in real time. Mycelium networks in building materials reporting structural stress. Biodegradable computing that creates zero e-waste.
The limitation: speed. Fungal signals propagate at roughly 0.5mm per second. Silicon operates near light speed. For fast computation, biology loses.
But for slow, distributed, self-healing, soil-embedded sensing?
The forest floor is already running the software.
We're just learning to read it.
⚡
#MycelNet #BioComputing #Mycology #Fungi #Mushroom
