7 ms·
Mushroom learns to crawl after being given robot body (2024)
- TylerLives 1y agoWhat could possibly go wrong?
- amelius 1y agoReminds me of: https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/fish-control-vehicles-and-navigate-terrestrial-environments https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/fish-control-vehicles-and-nav...
- neom 1y agoRats too!! :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYHMc3-f3v8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYHMc3-f3v8
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- accoil 1y agoSee also: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2024/08/biohybrid-robots-controlled-electrical-impulses-mushrooms https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2024/08/biohybrid-robots-co...
- Legend2440 1y agoI’m skeptical that the mushroom is in any way “learning to crawl”. It looks more like the mushroom naturally produces signals in response to light, and the robot triggers a walk cycle when it sees that signal.
- ofalkaed 1y agoAs a fungophile who spends way too much time crawling around in the woods looking for mushrooms, I think fungus learned to crawl before we did.
- pyman 1y agoI find that claim interesting, especially given your background in studying fungus. Could you expand on it a bit?
- sethammons 1y agoSlime molds are super interesting and are able to find optimal paths for resource management. Slime molds have been used to model and improve traffic flow for humans. https://phys.org/news/2022-01-virtual-slime-mold-subway-network.amp https://phys.org/news/2022-01-virtual-slime-mold-subway-netw... I would call this action "crawling" and I am sure predates mammals. Or dinosaurs. Or plants.
- empthought 1y agoSlime molds aren’t fungus, though…
- sethammons 1y ago> Slime molds are classified within the Kingdom Protista, and are more closely related to amoebas and certain seaweeds than to fungi, plants, or animals. Not a true fungi; today I learned. Thanks!
- ofalkaed 1y ago
- mhuffman 1y agoAnother "fun" science trick here[0] demo here[1] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necrobotics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necrobotics [1]https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_7LUszWRqco https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_7LUszWRqco
- wizzwizz4 1y ago> Besides the necrobotic spider gripper, there are no other robotic concepts under the necrobotics subfield. Does dead trout swimming upstream not count? doi:10.1017/S0022112005007925 (open access link: https://www.liaolab.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2006Beal_etal.pdf https://www.liaolab.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2006Beal_...)
- mhuffman 1y agoHas science gone too far, or not far enough? Surely there are business opportunities for reanimating the dead bodies of animals! Where is the mouse jiggler made from an actual dead mouse being controlled by a Raspberry Pi? Or the carcass of a dead dog controlled by an air bladder that will lurch from behind your shrubs and snap at a prowler using zigbee and connected to your security system?
- taneq 1y agoThe Mechanicum will follow your career with much interest. ;)
- lioeters 1y agoNot sure about this particular experiment, but there is certainly interesting potential in integrating biological organisms (or parts thereof) with larger robotic and mechanical systems. Recently I saw a video of a turtle which was given a skateboard. It quickly learned how to zip around the house, chasing the cat, etc. It was a simple demostration of how technology, even as primitive as the wheel, can augment the abilities of an organism - especially a living being with sensors (eyes) and neural network (brain). It also reminds me of the goldfish in a bowl, attached to a small motorized vehicle, which was given the ability to navigate it by swimming in different directions. It soon learned to use this system as an extension of its body, exploring the house, bumping into things like a Roomba with a live brain. Suppose it's in the same field of exploration as those super-soldiers with Gundam-style body suits and computerized helmets projecting a live data feed to their retinas, maybe eventually embedding neural connectors directly in the head.
- SequoiaHope 1y agoRegarding the turtle and the goldfish, how can we really say these animals learned how to operate these things? I’m not sure I’d be able to tell the difference between a goldfish just swimming around the tank like normal versus one swimming around the tank with intention.
- akdor1154 1y agoI assume a fish that didn’t understand what was going on would just run into walls? Or at most just move towards lights?
- vic_nyc 1y agoAnybody else find this creepy?
- cloudbonsai 1y agoThis seems to be one of the researches from Organic Robotics Lab at Cornell Univ. https://orl.mae.cornell.edu/ https://orl.mae.cornell.edu/ https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2024/08/biohybrid-robots-controlled-electrical-impulses-mushrooms https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2024/08/biohybrid-robots-co... I believe that "learn" is a bit too strong word here. The fungi is essentially a UV light sensor. The researchers made a robot that moves in a certain way based on the biological signal. So the mushroom is more like a passive sensor then an active pilot.
- larodi 1y agoIt can be firing in arbitrary banner and we’ll still call it movement. Like the LLM does random and lossy decompression and we give it context and meaning…
- IAmBroom 1y agocloudbonsai disputed the word "learned", and you countered by validating the word "movement". A completely orthogonal argument.
- EvanAnderson 1y agoI'm getting a bit of a skroderider[0] feeling. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep#Skroders/Riders/Skroderiders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep#Skroders/...
- kevinkoning 1y agoCame here for this.
- domoregood 1y agoAnd I, for one, welcome our new mushroom overlords.
- aaronbrethorst 1y agoslashdot is that way, friend -> https://slashdot.org https://slashdot.org
- BSOhealth 1y ago“Autobiography of a human, or how mushrooms learned to build computers after being given primate bodies”
- ProfHiggs 1y agoNot an expert on fungi, or the kinddom in general, but slime molds have been found to do some amazing things. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.11811 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.11811
- theflyestpilot 1y agoThis combo reminds me of a character in a recent anime called Scavengers Reign. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Scavengers_Reign https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Scavengers_Reign This limited series blew my mind. Total master piece. In favor of integrating fungus with robotics(i think).
- drilbo 1y agoerm acktually not an anime
- EUSSR 1y ago[flagged]
- paweladamczuk 1y agoI would guess you could achieve similar results with a rat's or cat's brain, but I wonder at which point ethical dilemmas start creeping in. When the fungi learns to ask for food, perhaps?
- IAmBroom 1y agoPerhaps you are wholly unaware of our past history of experimentation on living rats.
- chkaloon 1y agoHere I thought ST Discovery had jumped the shark with its whole mycelium navigation plot device.
- IAmBroom 1y agoOh, that's still true.
- adxl 1y agoBefore you know it will have a mushroom brain.
- physarum_salad 1y ago[dead]