Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

• Scientists at Ohio State University have developed memristors—typically used in non-volatile data storage—made from common mushrooms.
• Although not as powerful as metal memristors, these fungal components could still switch electrical states at 5,850 signals per second with about 90 percent accuracy.
• While mushrooms won’t replace commercial computing components, this discovery does help push forward organic computing.

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The future is fungal, and in more ways than one.

Many farmers are switching from chickens to mushrooms as the cost of animal agriculture continues to rise grows, NASA wants to build extraterrestrial habitats using fungi, and scientists are continually exploring the therapeutic uses of the mushroom-derived psychedelic psilocybin.

Now, the world of computing is getting in on the mycelium revolution. A new study led by scientists at Ohio State University (OSU) has created organic memristors—components capable of remembering past electric states, typically used for non-volatile data storage—using mushrooms. And these aren’t some exotic mushrooms found in some remote rainforest. In fact, you can buy them at your local grocery store. The results of the study were published in the journal PLOS One.

Creating computer components out of shiitake and button mushrooms likely spawns one question: Why? Well, while Apple won’t be releasing a fungus-based Macbook anytime soon, an organic computer does come with a variety of cost and energy efficiency advantages while also providing a compelling platform for future neuromorphic (i.e. brain-like) computers.

“Mycelium as a computing substrate has been explored before in less intuitive setups, but our work tries to push one of these memristive systems to its limits,” John LaRocco, lead author of the study from OSU, said in a press statement. “Being able to develop microchips that mimic actual neural activity means you don’t need a lot of power for standby or when the machine isn’t being used. That’s something that can be a huge potential computational and economic advantage.”

Using common mushrooms, LaRocco and his team cultured the samples, dehydrated them, and then connected them to electronic circuits. Because distinct parts of the mushroom have different electrical properties, the team was able to probe various parts of the fungal memristor and tweak voltage and connectivity for optimal performance.

Two months later, the researchers noted that when they used the mushroom device for Random Access Memory (RAM), the mushroom memristors switched between electrical states at 5,850 signals per second with about a 90 percent accuracy. This is far below the efficiency of typical memristors, and the performance dipped as voltages increased. However, the authors note that, like the brain, this could be overcome by connecting more mushroom material to the circuit.

LaRocco and his team stated that there is progress to be made—as optimizing the production process could improve fungal performance, and larger mushrooms could open up new use cases—but this first foray into organic computing is a promising one, and it’s one that could have major advantages as we try to find a way to live sustainably on the planet.

“Society has become increasingly aware of the need to protect our environment and ensure that we preserve it for future generations,” Qudsia Tahmina, co-author of the study form OSU, said in a press statement. “So that could be one of the driving factors behind new bio-friendly ideas like these.”

Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough.