The future of fashion might be alive, literally. Scientists have created a weirdly futuristic textile made from a fungus related to the one that inspired The Last of Us and they have turned it into an actual dress.
The good news is it won’t turn you into a zombie. The even better news is the material can potentially repair itself if it gets damaged.
It’s giving ‘The Last of Us,’ but make it fashion
The fungus in question is Cordyceps militaris, a parasitic fungus that naturally grows on caterpillars. If that name sounds familiar, that’s because “The Last of Us” franchise took inspiration from Cordyceps fungi for its horrifying zombie apocalypse. In real life, however, Cordyceps militaris isn’t out to turn humans into mushroom monsters.
On the contrary, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences are turning it into something considerably more stylish. Ke Li and her colleagues developed a living textile by growing the fungus into tiny spherical pellets in liquid culture. They then washed the pellets and placed them into molds, where the fungal structures intertwined to form a continuous sheet.
According to Li, the material is denser and less fibrous than cotton, with a texture closer to a soft non-woven sheet. And no, it does not smell like a mushroom farm. Fresh samples can have a slight biological or fermentation-like smell, but washing, drying, and processing significantly reduce it.
The fabric is literally alive
The textile is made from hyphae, the microscopic thread-like structures that make up fungi. Those structures intertwine to create the material’s framework, so the researchers don’t need to add conventional fabric, plastic mesh or another supporting scaffold. The fungus basically builds its own clothes.
The researchers can also modify the material by introducing other microorganisms, giving the textile different abilities. Want color? Add specially engineered yeast cells that produce orange, blue or purple pigments. Want UV protection? The researchers used Aspergillus niger, a common mold found on fruits and vegetables. It creates a dark, melanin-rich layer that can absorb ultraviolet radiation.
And then there’s the really fun part.
Tear it, and the mushroom can fix it
Normal clothes have one response to being ripped. Stay ripped. But this fungal textile has a different strategy. If the material is damaged, researchers can apply fresh, wet fungal pellets to the damaged area. The fungus can then grow across the breach, effectively repairing the textile.
The catch is that the fungus needs the right conditions. When the textile is dry, biological activity drops significantly and the cells can remain dormant. Give them humidity and nutrients, though, and some of that biological activity can return. That’s what allows the material to potentially regrow and repair itself.
The researchers actually turned the fungal material into a dress. However, nobody has worn it yet. According to Li, the team treated the dress as a precious display piece, and because it was made in a small size, it has not exactly been ready for a runway debut. She did suggest that perhaps some “petite and adventurous volunteers” could try it next time.
The dress can biodegrade, and it’s both a blessing and a curse
The fungal textile has another impressive feature in that it doesn’t want to stick around forever. In soil, the material showed near-complete visible degradation after just over 40 days. That is potentially fantastic news for the fast-fashion industry’s enormous waste problem.
But there is an obvious downside. It turns out there is such a thing as “too easily biodegradable.” As Beardsley points out, a material that breaks down easily is great for dealing with fashion waste but considerably less great if you’re wearing it when the breakdown starts. Nobody wants their jeans to enter their decomposition era before they’ve even made it home from brunch.
The researchers are not stopping at self-repair
Because the material is biological, scientists think it could eventually be possible to program it to change properties depending on the environment. Justin Beardsley of the University of Sydney suggested the possibility of a textile that becomes more water-repellent when it is raining, then switches back to being more breathable once the weather clears.
It sounds like a stretch until you remember we basically wear computers on our wrists.
Source: New Scientist