Top
Best
New

Posted by speckx 1 day ago

Dress made of living mycelium can renew and repair itself(www.dezeen.com)
90 points | 53 comments
AlanYx 1 day ago|
The claim in the article that saccharomyces cerevisiae (brewer's yeast) naturally produced the deep blue color in the butterfly example is not actually true, although it's a gorgeous effect.

These are genetically engineered variants of brewer's yeast designed to produce pigments.

Forgeties79 1 day ago|
Wow you weren’t kidding that’s a beautiful color
inigyou 1 day ago||
You can buy this color for 3€/meter at any weekend fabric market.
AlanYx 1 day ago|||
You could, but getting it from pigments in a chitinous matrix produced by genetically engineered brewer's yeast is just a little bit cooler.
pessimizer 1 day ago||
I think they're saying that's exactly what you're buying for 3€/yd.
inigyou 1 day ago||
No, I'm saying if the color is the only part you want, you can get it more easily.
Forgeties79 1 day ago||||
Ok? I just think it’s neat.
bofadeez 1 day ago|||
[flagged]
dustfinger 1 day ago||
I wonder if there is a health hazard wearing this due to breathing in spores or toxins released into the air? Or perhaps there is a risk that the wearer will absorb harmful chemicals secreted by the mycelium via contact with the wearer's skin? Very interesting none the less. I have imagined humans making living clothes for a long time, so it is nice to see that idea materialize.
dylan604 1 day ago||
"Following drying at 45 degrees, the material is not quite living and not quite dead, but instead in a "low-metabolic, dormant-like state", Li told Dezeen, meaning it is not actively growing."

Don't think spores will be an issue since it's not the mycelium's sex organ mushroom that you're thinking of

fluoridation 1 day ago||
It depends on the species. Some fungi like molds do directly sporulate from the mycelium.
dylan604 1 day ago||
From TFA: "These are mixed in with the cordyceps militaris"

"Many authors consider C. militaris quite common, spread throughout the Northern Hemisphere,[6] and fruiting bodies appear in Europe from August to November."[0]

That sounds like a mushroom to me

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordyceps_militaris

svachalek 1 day ago|||
It seems telling that none of the photos show anyone wearing it.
Qem 1 day ago|||
> Or perhaps there is a risk that the wearer will absorb harmful chemicals secreted by the mycelium via contact with the wearer's skin?

Or just getting a bad itch.

ChrisMarshallNY 1 day ago|||
Some people are very allergic to mushrooms. I wonder if that would extend to this.

But it's pretty cool.

johnea 20 hours ago||
Spoken like a true patriot!

Obviously, us american's need to wear and use everything made from oil, because it's so safe...

funkygibbon 1 day ago||
I would buy one, but I don’t think I have mushroom in my wardrobe for it.
samudrijan 1 day ago|
Soylent queen
juancn 1 day ago||
How does it smell though?
dhosek 1 day ago||
I didn’t think of the smell at all, I was wondering what the feel was like. There’s a certain level of comfort that’s expected from clothing that matters. There’s also the question of breathability. Is it going to trap sweat and smells like polyester clothing?
other_herbert 1 day ago||
If you sweat in this though, would it grow from the moisture or get killed off by the salinity? either way could lead to new and unexpected failure modes for clothing
ComputerPerson 1 day ago|||
Most people associate mushrooms and fungi with the smell of their substrate; they commonly don't have a strong smell themselves

I doubt it has a smell stronger than the wearer

edit: this is a bad take, upon further research

AlanYx 1 day ago|||
The mushroom smell isn't from either the substrate or respiration. That distinct odor is 1-octen-3-ol. Biochemists call it "mushroom alcohol." It's caused by enzymatic breakdown of their cell walls, and it thought to be related to signalling.

I doubt it would be strongly present here. The article says the mycelium are close to dormant.

You can actually purchase mushroom alcohol commercially as a food additive.

_whiteCaps_ 1 day ago||||
Chanterelles smell great. I would wear something that smelled like that.

Pine mushrooms, not so much.

fluoridation 1 day ago|||
I've done cultures on agar agar and mycelium definitely does have a distinctive smell. To me it's reminiscent to the damp smell of a concrete basement, though less stale and unpleasant.
dylan604 1 day ago||
probably smells like patchouli
londons_explore 1 day ago||
I put a load of washing on, then ended up in hospital for a year.

On return, the contents of the washing machine were pretty much this.

asveikau 1 day ago|
Sounds like quite an ordeal, hope things are going well now.
kxjwidjwjdj 1 day ago||
Mr Stamets (both real AND fictional) must be proud as heck!
andai 1 day ago||
Could they make a house out of this?
bastawhiz 1 day ago||
It doesn't seem to have the rigidity to be structurally sound for construction.
dylan604 1 day ago||
my tent material doesn't have rigidity to it either. if we change out the word "house", it could be an interesting material to play with for other types of shelter. it's supposed to be hydrophobic, but how hydrophobic? a light spritz or spilled drink or holds up in the rain?
DANmode 1 day ago||
https://constructionindustrytoday.co.uk/2026/06/01/mykor-clo...
chrisjj 1 day ago||
> nutrient solution is applied over a hole, along with a small patch of fresh fungus

So, not repair itself.

dustfinger 1 day ago||
To be fair it only claimed "near self-repairing".
cestith 1 day ago|||
One could think of it as mostly self-repairing with some outside encouragement.
soiltype 1 day ago||||
The headline is more ambitious, that's probably what they meant
chrisjj 1 day ago|||
Nope. "Dress made of living mycelium can renew and repair itself".
bastawhiz 1 day ago|||
Exactly. You can place a patch with some glue over a hole in fabric to achieve the same thing in a traditional garment. Iron-on repair patches are also similar.

It's one thing to say "get it wet and leave it in the sun". It's another thing to require identical replacement material and nutrient slurry (I don't know about you, but I think I can source fabric glue more easily than potato water).

andai 1 day ago|||
Does the fresh fungus need to be genetically identical? I read something about mycelial nuclei in high school and it was weird.
fluoridation 1 day ago||
I guess they're just trying to get the networks to interlace, not to reconstitute into a single organism and be capable of nutrient exchange, so I don't think it matters if they're identical or not.
zshrdlu 1 day ago||
Well you gotta recharge it of course, just not with a power cord.
hercynium 1 day ago|
Cordyceps, huh? An interesting choice! And ironically the subject of an article on Ars Technica that just dropped...

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/08/parasitic-zombie-fun...

kxjwidjwjdj 1 day ago|
How is that ironic?
hercynium 1 day ago||
I'm guessing that the OP didn't know about the Ars article when they posted. Perhaps "serendipitously" would have been a better word?
More comments...