Researchers at Cornell have come up with a novel way to control a walking robot: with a mushroom.
Cornell explained in a press release that these four-legged “biohybrid” robots were built by researchers who literally grew mycelia, the belowground connective threads that allow fungal communities to communicate, into the robot itself.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/mushroom-robot-brain
This is a little freaky…
Believe it or not, there actually is some science behind Star Trek: Discovery’s “spore drive.” This robot is just one small step…
Psyche! There are no “mycelial network” in space, and the drive would only work if we could somehow find a fifth spatial dimension (this was discussed a few years ago).
Too bad the spore drive is “laughably ridiculous,” said one scientist, and if all Star Trek ships had one, over half its episodes wouldn’t have happened.
Oh well. At least a “sporebot” is possible.
Hmm.
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