From breaking down toxins to changing the inner workings of the human mind, mushrooms are capable of some seriously impressive features. But now, researchers have taken a fungi's amazing abilities to a new level as they teach a mushroom to crawl in a robot body. Scientists from Cornwell University in New York have created a new type of'biohybrid robot' which puts the humble mushroom in the driver's seat. Natural electrical signals in the mushroom that are triggered by light are able to control the hybrid device's insect-style legs. The researchers say that robots of the future could make use of these fungal brains to respond to navigate more unpredictable environments.

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Researchers at Cornell University tapped into fungal mycelia to power a pair of proof-of-concept robots. Mycelia, the underground fungal network that can sprout mushrooms as its above-ground fruit, can sense light and chemical reactions and communicate through electrical signals. This makes it a novel component in hybrid robotics that could someday detect crop conditions otherwise invisible to humans. The Cornell researchers created two robots: a soft, spider-like one and a four-wheeled buggy. The researchers used mycelia's light-sensing abilities to control the machines using ultraviolet light.

Buried in forest litter or sprouting from trees, fungi might give the impression of being silent and relatively self-contained organisms, but a new study suggests they may be champignon communicators. Mathematical analysis of the electrical signals fungi seemingly send to one another has identified patterns that bear a striking structural similarity to human speech. Previous research has suggested that fungi conduct electrical impulses through long, underground filamentous structures called hyphae – similar to how nerve cells transmit information in humans. It has even shown that the firing rate of these impulses increases when the hyphae of wood-digesting fungi come into contact with wooden blocks, raising the possibility that fungi use this electrical "language" to share information about food or injury with distant parts of themselves, or with hyphae-connected partners such as trees. But do these trains of electrical activity have anything in common with human language?

Life is underpinned by fungi. Fungal filaments extend through the soil in networks of mycelia, but we know relatively little about them and questions abound, including where on Earth they are and in what diversity and abundance. Vast and powerful, mycelial networks sequester carbon, hold soils together and supply as much as 80 per cent of all nutrients to terrestrial plants. In just one hectare of grassland, the extent of fungi is equivalent to around 12 million times the length of the Amazon River. But just like the distributions of plant species, those of fungi are almost certainly shifting in response to climate change.