Living mycelium dress can self-repair and renew itself
Dress made of living mycelium can renew and repair itself
Researchers in China have created a textile from living mycelium that is self-cleaning, can repair itself, and can be customized with 'plug-and-play' add-ons like color or UV resistance. The material, developed at the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, uses dormant cordyceps militaris fungus that can be reactivated with a nutrient solution to grow and mend tears. A prototype dress was made with Berlin-based Peelsphere, and the work is published in Science Advances.
While synthetic biology has greatly expanded the functional capabilities of ELMs, a persistent challenge lies in integrating autonomous structural assembly with sustained biological activity at macroscopic scales.