In Spain and the UK, researchers at Polytechnic University of Valencia and University of the West of England have developed a fungi-based coating that could be a multifunctional sensor for electronics. They also demonstrated the potential of the material to act as living, cybernetic “skin” by making a Terminator-style robot mockup.
“There’s this scene in ‘The Terminator’ in which they implant the skin on the robot,” Antoni Gandia tells New Scientist. “The skin is external to him, yet it reports data to the robot and auto-repairs. We wanted to show that we can already do things like that.”
In the 1984 film, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a cybernetic assassin sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor, whose unborn son will one day save mankind from extinction by Skynet, a hostile artificial intelligence in a post-apocalyptic future.
The researchers grew Ganoderma sessile—a fungus sensitive to light and touch—on agar coated on the Terminator model. “As we continue to push the boundaries of what is achievable with mycelium, we step closer to a future where bio-cybernetic systems are a part of our everyday lives,” according to the team’s paper, which is still in peer review.