Mushroom learns to crawl after being given robot body | Hacker News Reader

Mushroom learns to crawl after being given robot body

independent.co.uk

93 pointsvirtualritz30 comments

As with any "New York Times Journal of Medicine"-type article, the author of the article didn't understand/chose to inflate the actual research - what they did was create a system that captures the fungus's electrical activity and used those pulses to arbitrarily assign movement rules to the robot. There's no suggesting of the fungus controlling the robot - merely a showcase that we have a system to capture the electrical activity of a mushroom. For all intents and purposes we have a robot with a motor instead of any other indicator - could've been a monitor showing a graph.

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2009-08-30

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/science-journalism

The daily show or John Oliver show should do a recurring segment mocking msm science coverage.

This is a serious problem, and only getting more serious with ai generated misinformation.

Science is a pure institution of truth, or the best approximation of it that is practically possible. Bad science reporting has for decades undermined this tapping into the inherent antiintellectual current in America culture, relegating it to no better than celebrity news and news of the weird distraction segments.

It really reflects very poorly on the fourth estate, it's not a new problem, it's existed for at least a century.

I doubt things would ever get better considering the financial war on newspapers and news reporting in general

Why would a pillar of MSM do that?

Last Week Tonight (John Oliver’s show) mocks some part of mainstream media every episode. It’s the “and now this” segment. Plus they have no qualms about criticising what they see as wrong such as disguised sponsored content or “local” news all repeating the same talking points from their owner. Mocking science coverage would be peanuts.

Better title would “random input enables robot to wiggle; mushroom used as random generator.”

now you are making me wonder if mushrooms could be good random number generators

NSA are not ready with the backdoor yet. Once done, NIST will include MRNG in the next standard.

Most things in nature would be. How many leaves on this basil plant?

Well, reading the article from the research that was linked in the HN comments: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.adk8019?url_...

"Taking advantage of fungal mycelia’s natural light sensitivity, Mishra et al. developed an electrical interface to both house the mycelia and measure their electrophysiological action potentials. A control model was then developed to use the rhythmic voltage spikes from the living mycelia to control the locomotion of both a soft starfish-inspired robot and a wheeled robot. Robot trajectories could be altered by stimulating the mycelia with ultraviolet light. "

So. The mushroom was used as an ultraviolet light sensor, not just an RNG. But you could imagine it reacting to anything that might interest a mushroom. Food? Some sensors could be more useful than others.

A book released earlier this year (1) asking about whether humanity is guaranteed to avoid losing the war against fungal pathogens. It turns out that all kinds of fungus generally get more aggressive in hotter climates.

So, this research that their adaptability exceeds slime molds isn't reassuring.

(1): https://muse.jhu.edu/book/124391/

If you can't beat them, join them. Fungus-human-symbiot might be a win-win!

last of us

However odd it may seem, fungi are evolutionary closer to animals than to plants.

This has no relevance to the article. As others have said, the fungi isn't actually thinking or really controlling the bot.

It makes arbitrary electrical stimulus anyways, and they're just "listening" to that and using it to control a robot

Coincidently I happened to listen to a bbc radio programme on mushrooms which talked about cordyceps and how it infects ants. The new (to me) research was that the fungus doesn't really infect the brain, more the rest of the body and its muscles. Cordyceps more or less puppeteers the ants body to get it to do what it wants in very precise ways, like making the ant climb to a suitable height and then bite into a particular part of the plant's leaf. All of this from a fungus.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0022sck]

Here is the original source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39196952/

This research appears to have low fungibility

Replication will be spore-addic!

I'm not surprised. Because I like to try out many things in order to gain firsthand perspectives, I tried veganism for a year back in 2003. It was the first time I grilled a portobello mushroom. My system was so completely cleared out of any animal products after many months (including honey) that I was absolutely shocked when I bit into its meaty flesh and was overwhelmed with a sentient connection that went beyond a simple similarity in texture, as it was very obvious to be animal in nature. As I was working at the San Diego Natural History museum at the time, I consulted with the librarian and found that mushrooms do indeed carry a combination of both plant and animal DNA.

I'll show you exactly where this folly leads.

Putting fungus in charge of a robot body leads directly to the creation of the Daleks and then the only way to fix that is to get Doctor Who to destroy the lab growing the mushrooms, as shown here:

https://youtu.be/RUNLK2oN5c4?t=2212

Humanity is making a terrible mistake with the "mushroom controls robot" thing, it will not end well - likely with us all cringing in the smoking ruins of civilisation whilst mushroom Daleks search for the survivors amongst the rubble.

Almost certainly.

Learns to crawl isn't accurate but it raises interesting questions about sentience. A better title would be “humans learn to build robot that uses mycellium's bio-chemical reactions to stimuli to pilot a robot”…Kinda long though and not really eye catching ;)

I mean, “learns”? They took an existing biochemical/electrical activity pattern and wired it up to trigger servo motors. The mushroom did not learn anything.

Amateurs!

So far.

Step 2, take decapitated cadavers and replace head with mushroom. If it turns into half life, we win!

I thought we had invented skroderiders for a second.

I propose we call these engineers Fungineers

They must be very fun guys.

What? No fun gals?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com