Mushroom Material To Replace Plastic And Strong Enough To Stop A Bullet #NatureAndTechnology
Philip Ross designed super strong building material out of fungi. via usfca.edu
USF’s Philip Ross believes he’s discovered a replacement for plastic. The future, he says, is fungal.
The assistant professor of art has invented a process for turning mushrooms—or, more specifically, mycelium, its root network—into a durable construction material.
Patent pending technology
His patent-pending technique involves growing reishi mushrooms, and then molding and baking their mycelium. The result is a durable and fireproof material that might just replace plastic in everything from food containers, to car and airplane parts, to furniture.
It’s also strong enough to stop a bullet. To test its strength, Ross once fired a gun at close range into a mycelium brick he had created. It absorbed the bullets easily, without breaking apart.
Adafruit has had paid day off for voting for our team for years, if you need help getting that going for your organization, let us know – we can share how and why we did this as well as the good results. Here are some resources for voting by mail, voting in person, and some NY resources for our NY based teams as well. If there are additional resources to add, please let us know – adafruit.com/vote
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
