Powered by mushrooms, living computers are on the rise (news.osu.edu)

Researchers at Ohio State University reported that common edible fungi such as shiitake and button mushrooms can be grown, dried and wired into functioning organic memristors — devices that remember past electrical states and can act like brain‑inspired processors or RAM. In lab tests (published in PLOS ONE), mushrooms wired at different points and pulsed with varying voltages showed reproducible memristive behavior: a dehydrated shiitake memristor could switch electrical states at up to ~5,850 signals per second with about 90% accuracy. Performance dropped at higher stimulation frequencies, but the team found that adding more fungal elements to the circuit could recover function, reflecting a distributed, neural‑like architecture. This work matters because fungal electronics promise a low‑cost, biodegradable alternative to conventional semiconductor memristors that often rely on rare-earth materials and energy‑intensive fabrication. Key technical implications include room for optimization in cultivation, device miniaturization and assembly to reach practical densities, and suitability for low‑power, edge or aerospace applications where standby energy and environmental impact matter. The research is early-stage — scaling, stability, and integration with existing electronics remain challenges — but it advances a tangible path for sustainable, brain‑inspired hardware built from living substrates.