Scientists Built a Computer Out of Shiitake Mushrooms

Scientists have just built working computer components out of shiitake mushrooms. No word yet on whether the computer can be sautéed with some butter and salt when you’re done with it.

As described in a paper published in PLOS One, using mycelium—the threadlike roots of fungi—researchers created memristors, the circuitry elements that remember past electrical states. You’d imagine such a feat would yield a memristor that performs terribly, but the researchers say its performance wasn’t too far off from that inside your laptop.

These organic circuits can store information, process signals, and maybe even help future computers behave more like organic brains, all while being low-cost, biodegradable, and probably compostable when you’re done with them.

Psychiatrist and lead researcher John