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- Hacker News
- Cordyceps, huh? An interesting choice! And ironically the subject of an article on Ars Technica that just dropped...
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/08/parasitic-zombie-fun...
by hercynium - How is that ironic?by kxjwidjwjdj
- Could they make a house out of this?by andai
- It doesn't seem to have the rigidity to be structurally sound for construction.by bastawhiz
- by DANmode
- Is there a possibility of the organisms escaping the material and infesting the environment? That's what I would worry about with mycelium.by LoganDark
- Mr Stamets (both real AND fictional) must be proud as heck!by kxjwidjwjdj
- Is there an adjective for something that's nifty but also gross?
- Blursed!by sdellis
- I'm not sure it's any more objectively gross than normal textile materials. Imagine you lived in a hairless, furless world where nothing like wool was a thing, and then suddenly we discovered a weird fluffy mammal that extruded long fibers out of its flesh; the people of that world might call that gross, we'd just call it ordinary.by kibwen
- I put a load of washing on, then ended up in hospital for a year.
On return, the contents of the washing machine were pretty much this.
- Sounds like quite an ordeal, hope things are going well now.by asveikau
- How does it smell though?by juancn
- probably smells like patchouliby dylan604
- Most people associate mushrooms and fungi with the smell of their substrate; they commonly don't have a strong smell themselves
I doubt it has a smell stronger than the wearer
edit: this is a bad take, upon further research
- I didn’t think of the smell at all, I was wondering what the feel was like. There’s a certain level of comfort that’s expected from clothing that matters. There’s also the question of breathability. Is it going to trap sweat and smells like polyester clothing?by dhosek
- > nutrient solution is applied over a hole, along with a small patch of fresh fungus
So, not repair itself.
by chrisjj - Well you gotta recharge it of course, just not with a power cord.by zshrdlu
- Does the fresh fungus need to be genetically identical? I read something about mycelial nuclei in high school and it was weird.by andai
- Exactly. You can place a patch with some glue over a hole in fabric to achieve the same thing in a traditional garment. Iron-on repair patches are also similar.
It's one thing to say "get it wet and leave it in the sun". It's another thing to require identical replacement material and nutrient slurry (I don't know about you, but I think I can source fabric glue more easily than potato water).
by bastawhiz - To be fair it only claimed "near self-repairing".by dustfinger
- I would buy one, but I don’t think I have mushroom in my wardrobe for it.by funkygibbon
- Soylent queenby samudrijan
- I wonder if there is a health hazard wearing this due to breathing in spores or toxins released into the air? Or perhaps there is a risk that the wearer will absorb harmful chemicals secreted by the mycelium via contact with the wearer's skin? Very interesting none the less. I have imagined humans making living clothes for a long time, so it is nice to see that idea materialize.by dustfinger
- Some people are very allergic to mushrooms. I wonder if that would extend to this.
But it's pretty cool.
- Spoken like a true patriot!
Obviously, us american's need to wear and use everything made from oil, because it's so safe...
by johnea - > Or perhaps there is a risk that the wearer will absorb harmful chemicals secreted by the mycelium via contact with the wearer's skin?
Or just getting a bad itch.
by Qem - It seems telling that none of the photos show anyone wearing it.by svachalek
- "Following drying at 45 degrees, the material is not quite living and not quite dead, but instead in a "low-metabolic, dormant-like state", Li told Dezeen, meaning it is not actively growing."
Don't think spores will be an issue since it's not the mycelium's sex organ mushroom that you're thinking of
by dylan604 - The claim in the article that saccharomyces cerevisiae (brewer's yeast) naturally produced the deep blue color in the butterfly example is not actually true, although it's a gorgeous effect.
These are genetically engineered variants of brewer's yeast designed to produce pigments.
by AlanYx