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I’ve always been sort of unnerved by mushrooms. They’ve always come across as weird and alien. But as an engineer, by golly, this is SO COOL.

Why scientists are rooting for mushrooms

Mushrooms are the organisms that keep on giving. They grow and feed the soil by breaking down organic matter. For centuries, they’ve also been a staple in our diet. 

Recently, people have started taking a closer look at mushrooms, and more specifically, mycelium — the hidden root of mushrooms — as an engineering material to produce goods like surfboards, packaging materials, furniture and even architecture.

As far as natural materials go, there’s never been anything as versatile and cost-effective as fungi, says Sonia Travaglini, a doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley, who is collaborating with artist and mycologist Philip Ross to unlock the seemingly infinite potential of fungi.

Mycelium can grow into any shape or size (the largest in the world blankets an entire forest in Oregon). They can be engineered to be as hard and strong as wood or brick, as soft and squishy as foam, or even smooth and flexible, like fabric. 

Unlike other natural materials, mushrooms can rely on their recycling properties to break down organic matter so you can grow a lot of it very quickly and cheaply just by feeding it biodegradable waste. In as little as two weeks, you can cultivate a hunk of mushroom that’s brick-sized.

That mycelium actually takes in waste and carbon dioxide as it grows (one species of fungi even eats plastic trash) instead of expelling byproducts makes it far superior to other forms of production.

Plus, when you’re done with mushroom, you can compost it or break up the material to grow more mycelium from it.

“And, unlike forming synthetic materials, which have to be made while very hot or under pressure, all of which takes a lot of energy to create those conditions, mycology materials grow from mushrooms which grow in our normal habitat, so it’s much less energy-intensive,” said Travaglini.

In the lab, Travaglini and other researchers crush, compress, stretch, pull and bend mycelium to test the amount of force the material can tolerate.   

They found that mycelium is incredibly strong and can withstand a lot of compression and tension.

Most materials are only strong from one direction. But mycology materials are tough from all directions and can absorb a lot force without breaking. So it can withstand as much weight as a brick, but won’t shatter when you drop it or when it experiences a hard impact, said Travaglini. 

As one of the newer organisms receiving an application in biomimetics, a field of science that looks to imitate nature’s instinctive designs to find sustainable solutions and innovation, we might be getting merely a glimpse of what fungi is capable of.

“Mycology is still a whole new field of research, we’re still finding more questions and still really don’t know where it’s going to go, which makes it really exciting,” said Travaglini.

Image sources: Vice UK/Mazda & Pearson Prentice Hall

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People playing Pokemon GO in rural areas be all like: "I would walk five hundred miles and I would walk five hundred more just to be the one who walked a thousand miles to catch a Bulbasaur"

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A pokemon collab with @moofrog!

We both picked out our favorite pokemon from each generation and drew them together

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The Price of Sugar

By reddit user Cymoril_Melnibone

When I was a little girl, if you’d asked me what I wanted to be, ‘starving artist’ wouldn’t have even been on the list.

Keep reading

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These iridescent snakes are gorgeous. The one on the right is a white-lipped python. 

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HEYA!! Guzmun here, and I wanted to thank you all for NEARLY 250 FOLLOWERS IN LESS THAN A MONTH!!

That’s just AWESOME ! And it’s such a wonderful community so far and I am having so much fun here, and there’s no way I coulda’ reached it without all of you, so here’s my way of saying thank you!

Alrighty, so this here is an art giveaway ! The prizes here will be:

THIRD PLACE

A sketch of 1-2 characters, not colored!

SECOND PLACE

A 1-2 character piece that has line art, with your choice of B&W or Sepia monochrome colors!

FIRST PLACE

A 1-2 character piece, fully colored and with your choice of shaded or simplistic background!

And here’s how you enter ! :

Follow me! This giveaway is a way to thank my followers, so this is only for my followers!  And please don’t follow and then unfollow, that’s awfully rude!

Like & Reblog to be entered! Both count in this, but only one reblog and one like, okay?

Please be patient! I have school so it may be expected that I might be slow, so I would appreciate patience! But you are free to remind me if it’s been a while!

THE WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON OCTOBER 7TH!

Good luck everyone, and thank you again!

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The statue stands six feet tall and sits near the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Russia. Scientists built this monument to honor lab rats. It’s a symbol of gratitude for their sacrifices to science. (Source)

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Trevenant: It can control trees at will. It will trap people who harm the forest, so they can never leave.

Litwick: While shining a light and pretending to be a guide, it leeches off the life force of any who follow it.

Phantump: According to old tales, these Pokémon are stumps possessed by the spirits of children who died while lost in the forest.

Happy Halloween~

Support me on patreon

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People really underestimate this relationship and favor Katara’s grief over Aang so much that we never really get to see fan art of her and her brother. Ultimately, I feel like Sokka’s death had the potential to hurt her the most - especially if we consider that Aang could have died before him, and she was all she really had left. But that’s all speculative.

[Also, do not remove my artist comments/source and/or watermark. You will be reported, otherwise. Thanks!] @DeviantArt [x]

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In fairness, it was my first campaign, and I didn’t know yet just how much this group could BREAK things.

Obvious Death Traps Are Obvious

To clairfy, the party was level 2 at this point.

DM (me): “You emerge from the ghoul cave to find yourself at the bottom of a canyon. Sitting on a rocky cleft nearby, you see a massive suspicious pile of treasure.”

Cleric: “I approach the giant pile of treasure.”

DM: “Okay, let me clarify. The pile smells suspiciously like dragon breath.”

Cleric: “Okay. I approach the pile.”

DM: “You encounter a sign. It says ‘Beware of Giant Ancient Dragon.’”

Cleric: “As I’ve been approaching the pile, I cast Detect Magic. I am specifically picking through magical items.”

DM: “It’s a freaking dragon’s hoard!”

Cleric: “I roll Perception and Appraise.”

*both nat 20s*

DM: “… I hate you.”

The cleric then proceeded to murder the dragon with the Moaning Diamond he stole from her hoard. She was CR 17.

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…and she’s gone 

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THIS IS SO PERFECT

Boneheads and ghost pokemon. While I don’t know if some of the ghost pokemon here would be on an actual pokemon team for each of the boneheads, this is what I made with what was given to me. Also added a few because there weren’t enough ghost pokemon for everyone.

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WHY IS THIS SO FUNNY

Adam Savage from Mythbusters has made “The Duck Bomb”

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CRUNCH