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Dress made of living mycelium can renew and repair itself

dezeen.com

11–20 of 57 posts

Re: Dress made of living mycelium can renew and repair itself

#11

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.

It seems telling that none of the photos show anyone wearing it.

Re: Dress made of living mycelium can renew and repair itself

#12
post #2

> nutrient solution is applied over a hole, along with a small patch of fresh fungus So, not repair itself.

To be fair it only claimed "near self-repairing".

One could think of it as mostly self-repairing with some outside encouragement.

Re: Dress made of living mycelium can renew and repair itself

#13

Is there an adjective for something that's nifty but also gross?

I'm not sure it's any more objectively gross than normal textile materials. Imagine you lived in a hairless, furless world where nothing like wool was a thing, and then suddenly we discovered a weird fluffy mammal that extruded long fibers out of its flesh; the people of that world might call that gross, we'd just call it ordinary.

Re: Dress made of living mycelium can renew and repair itself

#14
post #6

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.

Wow you weren’t kidding that’s a beautiful color

Re: Dress made of living mycelium can renew and repair itself

#17
post #2

> nutrient solution is applied over a hole, along with a small patch of fresh fungus So, not repair itself.

To be fair it only claimed "near self-repairing".

Nope. "Dress made of living mycelium can renew and repair itself".

Re: Dress made of living mycelium can renew and repair itself

#20
post #5

How does it smell though?

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

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.
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