* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Saturday, May 31, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Entertainment: On Your Marks, Get Set, Beer Run! – Urban Milwaukee

    Get Ready to Race: The Ultimate Beer Run Experience Awaits!

    Rachel Guttman Launches Entertainment Law Firm Gutt Law, PLLC [Exclusive] – MusicRow.com

    Rachel Guttman Unveils Exciting New Entertainment Law Firm: Gutt Law, PLLC!

    HYBE Cashes In: Offloads Final Stake in K-Pop Rival SM Entertainment for $177 Million!

    Allied Gaming & Entertainment Receives Expected Nasdaq Notice Regarding Delayed Quarterly Report – Business Wire

    Allied Gaming & Entertainment Faces Nasdaq Notice Over Delayed Quarterly Report

    Weekly Entertainment Report May 29-June 1: Where to find lively arts, music, and shows – Manchester Ink Link

    Weekly Entertainment Report May 29-June 1: Where to find lively arts, music, and shows – Manchester Ink Link

    Aziz Ansari made Keanu Reeves Indian food so he wouldn’t feel ‘freaked out’ directing him in Good Fortune (exclusive) – Entertainment Weekly

    Aziz Ansari Whips Up Indian Cuisine for Keanu Reeves to Ease Directing Jitters in Good Fortune

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology

    Revolutionary Harvesting Technology Promises to Slash CAR-T Manufacturing Costs!

    Stop the Machines: The Rise of Anti-Technology Extremism – International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – ICCT

    Unplugged: The Surge of Anti-Technology Extremism

    Finland to head EU’s quantum defense technology project – Latest news from Azerbaijan

    Finland Takes the Lead in Pioneering EU’s Quantum Defense Technology Initiative!

    i3D Robotics Unveils Breakthrough Glass Defect Detection Technology – USGlass Magazine

    Revolutionary Glass Defect Detection Technology Unveiled by i3D Robotics!

    4Liberty Announces Collaboration with Itron to Drive Innovation in Utility Technology Adoption and Optimization – FinancialContent

    4Liberty Partners with Itron to Revolutionize Utility Technology and Boost Innovation

    Q1 2025 Quantum Technology Investment: What’s Driving the Surge in Quantum Investment? – The Quantum Insider

    Unleashing the Future: Exploring the Surge in Quantum Technology Investments for Q1 2025

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Entertainment: On Your Marks, Get Set, Beer Run! – Urban Milwaukee

    Get Ready to Race: The Ultimate Beer Run Experience Awaits!

    Rachel Guttman Launches Entertainment Law Firm Gutt Law, PLLC [Exclusive] – MusicRow.com

    Rachel Guttman Unveils Exciting New Entertainment Law Firm: Gutt Law, PLLC!

    HYBE Cashes In: Offloads Final Stake in K-Pop Rival SM Entertainment for $177 Million!

    Allied Gaming & Entertainment Receives Expected Nasdaq Notice Regarding Delayed Quarterly Report – Business Wire

    Allied Gaming & Entertainment Faces Nasdaq Notice Over Delayed Quarterly Report

    Weekly Entertainment Report May 29-June 1: Where to find lively arts, music, and shows – Manchester Ink Link

    Weekly Entertainment Report May 29-June 1: Where to find lively arts, music, and shows – Manchester Ink Link

    Aziz Ansari made Keanu Reeves Indian food so he wouldn’t feel ‘freaked out’ directing him in Good Fortune (exclusive) – Entertainment Weekly

    Aziz Ansari Whips Up Indian Cuisine for Keanu Reeves to Ease Directing Jitters in Good Fortune

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology

    Revolutionary Harvesting Technology Promises to Slash CAR-T Manufacturing Costs!

    Stop the Machines: The Rise of Anti-Technology Extremism – International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – ICCT

    Unplugged: The Surge of Anti-Technology Extremism

    Finland to head EU’s quantum defense technology project – Latest news from Azerbaijan

    Finland Takes the Lead in Pioneering EU’s Quantum Defense Technology Initiative!

    i3D Robotics Unveils Breakthrough Glass Defect Detection Technology – USGlass Magazine

    Revolutionary Glass Defect Detection Technology Unveiled by i3D Robotics!

    4Liberty Announces Collaboration with Itron to Drive Innovation in Utility Technology Adoption and Optimization – FinancialContent

    4Liberty Partners with Itron to Revolutionize Utility Technology and Boost Innovation

    Q1 2025 Quantum Technology Investment: What’s Driving the Surge in Quantum Investment? – The Quantum Insider

    Unleashing the Future: Exploring the Surge in Quantum Technology Investments for Q1 2025

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Science

Mushroom leather? The future of fashion is closer than you think.

March 13, 2024
in Science
Mushroom leather? The future of fashion is closer than you think.
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

In present-day Romania, a dwindling number of artisans practice what’s thought to be a centuries-old craft. They search the forest for hoof fungus, which grows within trees and sends out shelflike mushrooms a few inches wide. The fungus is pried off trunks and, with a sickle, shaved lengthwise into thin strips the color of gingerbread. Those strips are then hammered and stretched to form broad, feltlike sheets called amadou, which can be crafted into hats, bags, jewelry, and ornaments.

These products are beautiful and eco-friendly, if painstaking to forage for and create. As far back as 1903, Tlingit artisans in what is now the state of Alaska were crafting pouches out of a sturdy matlike material. A 2021 study in the journal Mycologia suggests that these “mats” were produced by the agarikon fungus, a hardy polypore native to old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. But, again, the artisans’ process was about foraging for materials, not cultivating them for mass production.

(Fungi are key to our survival. Are we doing enough to protect them?)

Today, inside a 136,000-square-foot facility in Union, South Carolina, the biotechnology company MycoWorks is pioneering a more intentional and scalable approach. Beneath dim red lighting that resembles a darkroom’s, stacks of metal trays are arranged in tall columns. Large mechanical arms whirl about, ready to pluck them individually for close inspection by a small team of technicians who wear sterile suits and examine the contents with flashlights.

Each tray is incubating mycelium, a mesh of fine filaments that, for fungi, are roughly analogous to a plant’s root system. Mycelium is a structural marvel—simultaneously soft, dense, and strong—which makes it a great potential replacement for leather. Coaxing mycelium to grow in predictable ways may be a complex task, but recent advances in biotech have opened up a cottage industry for mycotextiles.

The early efforts appear to be more ethical, environmentally sustainable, and efficient than the multibillion-dollar industry that is animal leather. And MycoWorks is just one of a wave of innovators, all of which are betting big that a better understanding of mycelium can redefine the limits of fashion and design.

MycoWorks co-founder Phil Ross has been experimenting for more than 30 years with Ganoderma, a genus of fungi that grow a lot like hoof fungus in the wild. As an artist in his San Francisco apartment, he learned how to manipulate the fungi into a range of forms: In 2009 he constructed a “teahouse” made of bricks that could be removed and brewed into tea.

Ross first considered mycological-based construction materials, but an inquiry from a shoe company in 2015 helped him and co-founder Sophia Wang refocus on fashion. The material that MycoWorks now produces is called Reishi, borrowing the Japanese word for Ganoderma. In recent years, MycoWorks products have been used in designer bags for Hermès and upscale pillows for Ligne Roset.

The low-energy operation starts with agricultural waste, like sawdust and bran, which is heated to eliminate any existing microbial life that might be competition for the fungus. Once sterilized, the substrate goes into “deep-dish, lasagna-like trays” of varying sizes, says Ross. Then Ganoderma joins the party, digesting and growing through the biomass. In some cases, fabric can be added to the tray as a scaffolding for the mycelium to weave around, creating a composite material. The sheet of mycelium is eventually peeled off the sawdust block, and growth comes to a halt. From there, it can be “tanned” to yield a material easily mistaken for traditional leather before being crafted into, say, a purse or hat.

MycoWorks CEO Matt Scullin, who has a background in materials science, praises the “wet spaghetti” structure of mycelium, which is composed of filaments—called hyphae—that entangle one another and branch off in treelike patterns while leaving empty space between the cells. The result accounts for some of Reishi’s most appealing properties. “It has a bit of a velvety touch to it,” Scullin says. “It has a bounce. It has an absorptivity to the oils and heat that emanate from your fingers when you touch it.”

(Fast fashion goes to die in the world’s largest fog desert. The scale is breathtaking.)

While mycelium can be grown in mechanized warehouses, Aniela Hoitink, the founder of the Dutch company Neffa, short for New Fashion Factory, uses a liquid-culture technique to create bags, crop tops, even lampshades. On a recent day, she held up a small black handbag as proof of that proprietary process. Neffa uses bioreactor tanks—basically a fermenting system similar to a brewery’s—to concoct a mycelial slurry that is strained out of the liquid and then poured onto a mold to dry into any desired form.

“You can really design from the product, rather than designing from the material,” Hoitink says, flexing and stretching the bag’s glossy black material that’s somewhere between plastic and leather, almost reminiscent of licorice. “Technically, the bottom [of the bag] needs to be the strongest. So you could say, OK, we add a little bit more biomass here so that it’s thicker and sturdier.”

This basic process allows Neffa versatility with minimal labor. Most important, Hoitink says, is that the liquid-culture process affords a freedom to experiment with speculative ideas. “Because it’s a slurry, you can add ingredients a bit easier,” she says. The company’s next step, she suggests, may be to infuse the materials with branded aromas or even skin-care compounds that treat conditions like psoriasis.

That’s just one way these products may differ from standard leather. Both companies are thinking about their eco-footprint and the complete life cycle of their goods too. MycoWorks’s Reishi, for example, is fully biodegradable—allowing for a future in which disposing of an old pair of shoes might mean simply composting it.

(Is there a better way to get rid of old clothes?)

While larger companies hope to use fungi to generate wholly new environmentally friendly materials at scale, independent designers are exploring their potential to modify or break down the planet’s extant heaps of discarded fabric. Helena Elston, a New York–based designer, was studying fashion in London a few years ago when she devised an ethical response to the waste in her industry. She finds an old garment or stitches one together with scrap material, sterilizes it, and then adds an appliqué of mycelium.

Red shiny mushroom with twisted leg.

A pathogenic fungus, Ganoderma sessile feeds on the roots of deciduous hardwood trees.

Photograph by Phyllis Ma

Over the ensuing months, she’ll watch as the mycelium wends its way through the material. Sometimes it selectively eats at the natural fibers and ignores the synthetic ones. Sometimes it swirls dye into eddies of startling new color. In past experiments, Elston allowed the mycelium to break down the existing material completely. “It feels like it has this intellectual understanding that we as humans don’t have,” she says. “The most beautiful pieces have come out of me not being in control.”

Maggie Paxton, a mycophile in New York who hunts new pigments on her foraging walks, treats silk gowns with mushroom dyes for the American fashion house Coach. Recently, she took earth balls—mushrooms that resemble old golf balls, as if aged to a dull brown—and boiled them in a stockpot. She was startled to discover this dye turned her silk “the prettiest petal pink”—a color that might inspire a future collection.

Many designers still seem surprised enough by the behavior of fungi that they talk as if they’re collaborating with a vibrant, alien intelligence. “That’s the whole excitement about the field in general,” Paxton says. “We have no idea what magic is lying there right before us.” The goal is to keep finding out.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : National Geographic – https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/fungi-fast-fashion-mycotextiles

Tags: leatherMushroomscience
Previous Post

It’s harder than ever to identify a manipulated photo. Here’s where to start.

Next Post

Where to stay in Zanzibar, Tanzania

Predicting invasion costs from sparse data – Nature

Unlocking the Secrets of Invasion Costs: Insights from Sparse Data

May 31, 2025
High school science teacher’s advice leaves lasting mark on student – MSN

How a High School Science Teacher Inspired a Lifelong Passion for Learning

May 31, 2025
RFK Jr. threatens to bar government scientists from publishing in leading medical journals – Politico

RFK Jr. Vows to Restrict Government Scientists from Publishing in Top Medical Journals

May 31, 2025
Monique Thomas gifts love with Stem & Story Studio – Jamaica Gleaner

Monique Thomas gifts love with Stem & Story Studio – Jamaica Gleaner

May 31, 2025
Texas vs. Florida: 2025 Women’s College World Series Game 1 | Extended highlights – NCAA.com

Texas vs. Florida: 2025 Women’s College World Series Game 1 | Extended highlights – NCAA.com

May 31, 2025
Proposed URI medical school could fill doctor shortage, boost economy, draft report finds – The Public’s Radio

New URI Medical School: A Solution to Doctor Shortages and Economic Growth!

May 31, 2025
Entertainment: On Your Marks, Get Set, Beer Run! – Urban Milwaukee

Get Ready to Race: The Ultimate Beer Run Experience Awaits!

May 31, 2025
Trump administration ‘MAHA’ health report cited nonexistent studies – Reuters

Trump Administration’s ‘MAHA’ Health Report: Uncovering the Truth Behind Questionable Studies

May 31, 2025
Tributes pour in honoring legacy of legendary politician John Thrasher – Florida Politics

Celebrating the Enduring Legacy of Legendary Politician John Thrasher

May 31, 2025

Revolutionary Harvesting Technology Promises to Slash CAR-T Manufacturing Costs!

May 31, 2025

Categories

Archives

May 2025
MTWTFSS
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031 
« Apr    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (653)
  • Economy (668)
  • Entertainment (21,574)
  • General (15,252)
  • Health (9,710)
  • Lifestyle (670)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (670)
  • Politics (676)
  • Science (15,890)
  • Sports (21,172)
  • Technology (15,655)
  • World (656)

Recent News

Predicting invasion costs from sparse data – Nature

Unlocking the Secrets of Invasion Costs: Insights from Sparse Data

May 31, 2025
High school science teacher’s advice leaves lasting mark on student – MSN

How a High School Science Teacher Inspired a Lifelong Passion for Learning

May 31, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version