Link: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2581227-clothes-made-from-living-fungi-can-clean-and-repair-themselves/

A parasitic fungus that grows on caterpillars has been turned into a dress designed to be able to repair itself if damaged.

I'm sure absolutely nothing would go wrong with this, like fungus adapting to attach to human hosts too.

But very interesting idea

Super cool idea, not sure I'd be willing to wear fungal clothing, but its neat.

Under dry conditions, most biological activity is greatly reduced, and the cells may remain inactive or dormant, says Li.

But under humid conditions with nutrients present, some cells can become active again. This latent biological capacity is what enables functions such as regrowth and repair, and also means that the material is readily biodegradable, showing near-complete visible degradation in soil after just over 40 days.

Seems like it would need some sort of underlayer to separate it from sweat.

The last of us...

Oh did you say fungal undergarments? I do grow my own, but not to share.

Why not? No need to dress-undress everyday anymore.

This is really amazing as a first prototype. Probably you'd want to improve on this by genetic engineering. Like repairability and self cleaning and ideally eating skin oils or cells to stay alive.

A proper self cleaning biomaterial that ingests dust and transports ash it into some "garbage pocket" would be awesome. This could also be great for bedsheets, chair textiles, mattresses and maybe even wallpaper or carpet.

Really sad to see the harm done by the last of us. You are vastly different from a caterpillar, and even then, this thing is pretty picky about the type of caterpillar it affects.

I also wonder how they made it out of living mycelium, but the article is data blocked. But I would totally be first in line for this if it wasn't thousands of dollars.

Weird, I thought maybe newscientist changed their tune on paywalls since this one wasn't blocked for me. Here's an alt link for you:

https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.newscientist.com/article/2581227-clothes-made-from-living-fungi-can-clean-and-repair-themselves/

Mushroom leather! Very cool!

The famous mycobiologist (self sic) Paul Stamets has a hat he wears made from an arboreal species that I assume is less flexible. I'm excited to see if this gets picked up by any manufacturer.

It would be fantastic if it does, or if there were a way to grow your own fashion at home. I can't imagine it being much different from mushroom kits.

I'd be worried about injuring the fungus by accident.

It'll just take a nibble and fix itself.

How could this possibly go wrong?