Powered by Mushrooms, Living Computers Are on the Rise

hubie writes:

Neural organics lead to lower energy costs, faster calculation speeds:

Fungal networks may be a promising alternative to tiny metal devices used in processing and storing digital memories and other computer data, according to a new study.

Mushrooms have long been recognized for their extreme resilience [5:29 --JE] and unique properties. Their innate abilities make them perfect specimens for bioelectronics, an emerging field that, for next-gen computing, could help develop exciting new materials.

As one example, researchers from The Ohio State University recently discovered that common edible fungi, such as shiitake mushrooms, can be grown and trained to act as organic memristors, a type of data processor that can remember past electrical states.

Their findings showed that these shiitake-based devices not only demonstrated similar reproducible memory effects to semiconductor-based chips but could also be used to create other types of low-cost, environmentally friendly, brain-inspired computing components.

"Being able to develop microchips that mimic actual neural activity means you don't need a lot of power for standby or when the machine isn't being used," said John LaRocco, lead author of the study and a research scientist in psychiatry at Ohio State's College of Medicine. "That's something that can be a huge potential computational and economic advantage."

Fungal electronics aren't a new concept, but they have become ideal candidates for developing sustainable computing systems, said LaRocco. This is because they minimize electrical waste by being biodegradable and cheaper to fabricate than conventional memristors and semiconductors, which often require costly rare-earth minerals and high amounts of energy from data centers.

"Mycelium as a computing substrate has been explored before in less intuitive setups, but our work tries to push one of these memristive systems to its limits," he said.

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