The Fungus Factory

Nature's tiniest builder

Under the ground, inside a fallen log, or through a bag of straw, fungi grow a living web called mycelium (say "my-SEE-lee-um"). It is made of millions of threads far thinner than a hair, called hyphae. As these threads grow, they weave through their food and knit everything around them into one solid, springy mass.

Here is the amazing part: that web acts like a natural glue. Give mycelium a loose pile of bits — sawdust, straw, corn husks — and it will thread through the whole pile and bind it into a single strong shape. No factory machine needed. The fungus does the building itself.

Grown, not made

Most things around you are made. Plastic is squeezed out of oil in huge factories. Leather is cut from animal skin. These take a lot of energy, and plastic can last for hundreds of years in the sea or a rubbish dump.

So scientists and designers had a bold idea. What if we could grow materials instead of making them? Feed a fungus some farm leftovers, let it grow into the shape we want, then gently dry it so it stops growing. The result is a solid object that was alive a moment before.

This idea has a name: mycofabrication, which simply means "building things with fungus."

Why fungus makes a great factory

Mycelium has some superpowers that make it perfect for this job:

• It eats waste. Corn stalks, sawdust and hemp bits that farms would throw away become its food.

• It needs very little — no sunlight, and hardly any energy, to grow.

• It grows fast. Many shapes are finished in about a week.

• When you have finished with the object, it can be composted, breaking down into food for soil instead of sitting in a landfill.

Over the next lessons you will meet three things grown from mycelium: packaging that protects parcels, a soft material like leather, and even bricks for buildings. Then you will grow a shape yourself.

Fungus really is a factory that grows.