A Play About Pregnancy Inspired By Mushroom Research

SPEAKER: People are finding all sorts of uses for mushrooms these days, and for the rest of the hour, we’re going to focus on two of them, how scientists are using them in robots and how playwrights are using them in theater. A few weeks ago, SciFri producer and host of our podcast Universe of Art, D Peterschmidt, checked out the Science In Theater Festival in Brooklyn, New York. It’s put on by a company called Transforma Theater, who stage science-inspired plays.

And one of those playwrights was inspired by mushroom research that seems stranger than fiction. Here’s D.

D PETERSCHMIDT: When director and playwright Hannah Simms was commissioned to write a play for the Science In Theater Festival earlier this year, she didn’t have to look too far for inspiration.

HANNAH SIMMS: Well, I had just had a baby, and that was the most profoundly science-fiction experience of my life, and pregnancy was my experience of having this really intimate connection with a being growing inside my body– so closer than I’ve ever been to anyone– but we had no form of communication beyond this sort of woo-woo, cellular feeling about our connection.

D PETERSCHMIDT: Hannah was directed to a growing field of research called unconventional computing, where scientists are trying to figure out how to connect various parts of nature, like mushrooms, to computers. Mushrooms have these root-like threads called mycelium, which, turns out, generate electrical signals. It’s a small amount, but it’s enough to send through wires to control a basic computer interface. Different species of mycelium produce different types of electrical signals depending on what they’re exposed to, like a chemical or light. But some scientists suggest that this signaling could be a form of communication for these fungi and maybe even a sign of consciousness. Hannah’s play, Fruiting Bodies, takes those ideas a few steps forward.

HANNAH SIMMS: One of the sort of foundational concepts of my piece is that the character creates a fetal monitor that runs on mycelium.

D PETERSCHMIDT: This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. That character Yara, who studies fungal computing, is in the final months of her pregnancy and creates a mushroom-powered fetal heart monitor almost as a side project. But then with some artistic license from Hannah, she discovers she can talk with the mycelium powering the heart monitor, who has a different kind of connection with her unborn child than she does, and both their worlds open up in surprising and complicated ways. Endogeny, the name of the mycelium colony, is played by a human actor. Here’s a snippet from the play between Yara and Endogeny, played by Chloe Mutebi and Eureka Nakano Grimes. Endogeny speaks first.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

– You want me to learn me your yes/no language?

– Yeah, but code is not a language. Like, no one is born speaking it.

– Not your machines?

– Machines, they’re built to speak it.

– Built and born are different.

– Yeah. Humans build things with our hands and born things– birth people from our abdomens. Can I– can I show you?

D PETERSCHMIDT: Yara puts Endogeny’s hand on her belly.

– In there, there’s a new one.

– Ah, yes. A part of you that will reach farther out, a foraging front?

– Yeah, kind of. Exactly, actually. I guess it makes sense you know about that. Do you feel the–

– Sonic pulses? Yes!

– His heartbeat. We got to go to the lab tomorrow.

[END PLAYBACK]

D PETERSCHMIDT: A fetal heart monitor powered by mycelium that can talk to you and sense your unborn child, that’s not something you can pick up at CVS yet.

HANNAH SIMMS: It’s not a thing you would do, but I needed it.

D PETERSCHMIDT: But this idea of translating mycelium as electrical signals to a device or a machine is catching on with other scientists, like Anand Mishra. He’s a research associate at Cornell University in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and he specializes in what’s called soft robotics. He’s made robots that grow like plants, robots that have skin, and even robots that sweat to cool themselves down.

ANAND MISHRA: If you wanted to imagine what the future of robotics should look like, you need to have some integration of biology.

D PETERSCHMIDT: And earlier this year, Anand published research about a new kind of robot he helped make, and it’s entirely powered by mycelium. One of them looks like a starfish with five robotic legs. A Petri dish filled with king oyster mycelium sits on top, connected to the robot by wires.

ANAND MISHRA: We grew mycelium in a Petri dish. We put electrodes on that, and we designed a new kind of real-time control system, which is like reading the mycelium signal in real time and then sending it to a robot.

D PETERSCHMIDT: Mycelium produce these rhythmic electrical spikes that sent through electrodes to a control interface, which interprets those spikes and sends signals to the pneumatic motors and the legs of the robot, which kind of scrunches them up and then releases them, and that scoots the robot across a flat surface. King oyster mycelium are also sensitive to ultraviolet light, and when the team flashed that light onto the mycelium Petri dish, it changed the gait of the robot.

ANAND MISHRA: Imagine like hidden signal has now a mechanical visualization. So I feel like that’s why it’s so exciting to use this living system as a living material and develop such a system that can do more job.

D PETERSCHMIDT: Because mycelium acts as a natural sensor, researchers are thinking that they could use fungal robots to monitor the health of ecosystems, like soil health or air quality. And since fungi are a renewable and biodegradable resource, it offers a more sustainable way to build and power robots.

HANNAH SIMMS: I think one of the other reasons that fungi have really captured consciousness right now is that they are so adaptable and can grow in the harshest of conditions, and considering what we have been doing to our planet, that’s something that humans are really interested in is, how do we adapt? How do we continue to thrive in harsh environments? So I think what Anand is talking about is really exciting from that perspective.

D PETERSCHMIDT: Mycelium are also known for their ability to form complex networks underground that transport nutrients and sends signals to nearby plant life, which was a pretty irresistible concept for Hannah.

HANNAH SIMMS: I think that’s why I was so drawn to it, fungi as a metaphor for connection in a time that feels so disconnected, [LAUGHS], and fungi as a metaphor for listening. I think a lot of people right now go around knee jerk reacting to things and, as a result, dehumanizing and murdering each other. As we go around doing that, fungi seem like a really appealing symbol of what real connection and real synthesis could look like.

D PETERSCHMIDT: If you’re in the New York area and want to catch more science-inspired plays like this in the future, check out Transforma Theater, who put on the Science In Theater festival. I’m D Peterschmidt.

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