from Hacker News

Mylo: A leather-like material made from mycelium

by tuanx5 on 4/17/18, 9:24 PM with 160 comments

by nkurz on 4/17/18, 11:34 PM
Coincidentally, a friend recently showed me his "mushroom hat", which is made from "amadou": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadou. It's a wonderful lightweight texture, somewhere between leather and felt. A description of the manufacturing process (and the mushroom which it comes from) is here: http://frimminjimbits.blogspot.com/2012/08/mushroom-cap.html
by baxtr on 4/17/18, 9:52 PM
Leather production comes at a very high cost to the environment. So I welcome any real alternative (assuming it is significantly less dirty).
https://undark.org/article/leather-tanning-bangladesh-india/
by Kluny on 4/17/18, 10:56 PM
"It’s strong, and abrasion resistant." As a motorcyclist, I need to see a side-by-side abrasion resistance comparison. So far, nothing beats leather.
by ggm on 4/17/18, 10:30 PM
Can somebody explain how this is different to the "pleather" being made as a side-product from the production of Kombucha? Thats been a thing for a while now.
AFAIK its also grown by mould, from culture. But, it forms as a mat on top of the Kombucha fermenting liquid.
by italophil on 4/17/18, 11:22 PM
I believe they licensed the mycelium technology from a NY based startup called Ecovative, that has been shopping it around for furniture for some time.
by scythe on 4/17/18, 11:12 PM
The problem with pleather, in my experience, isn't that it feels insufficiently leather-like. The appearance is also just fine; the tendency to fade actually produces a somewhat nice pattern. The real problem is that the durability of most fake leather is drastically inferior to natural leather.
From personal experience, I had a leather jacket which I got in my first year of college (2008) and wore until it was stolen from my car in early 2016, when it was still in nearly-perfect condition (although the zipper got worse). I replaced it with a pleather jacket which has already lost most of the material on the right elbow and may soon develop a hole.
So I hope this mushroom-derived material will be at least somewhat more durable. What I really want to see is a sort of fake leather made from a more resilient polymer, such as polyetherimide or one of the other "high-performance polymers". Until that situation improves, I think I'm going back to cowhide.
by rdlecler1 on 4/18/18, 4:35 AM
Interesting, although on the business side, what happened to the spider silk? Bolt closed a $125m round in November 2017. You only get that kind of money if you are a messianic founder or have lots of progress.... This feels like this is some kind of auxiliary parachute. I wonder if the investors knew. Ironic that Peter Theil’s Founders Fund was one of the investors.... “We wanted spider silk and instead we got mushroom leather.”
by weatherlight on 4/18/18, 12:41 AM
This is exciting for new leather products, I'd like to see how a pair of boxing gloves or a pair of Thai pads made from such a material hold up. As for other leather goods. I usually just buy them second hand from a goodwill or something. Almost, Second-hand anything is good for the environment.
by toufka on 4/17/18, 10:05 PM
Very fun. A number of new players here. I look forward to the more exotic possibilities downstream. Integrating other biological capabilities, relaxing size, thickness, supplychain constraints, being part of a genetically-dynamic R&D process.
I'm curious about the different approaches between Bolt (who've so far at least been focused on fermentation) and Modern Meadow - versus newer smaller players like Provenance.
http://www.modernmeadow.com
http://provenance.bio
by ajkjk on 4/18/18, 4:28 AM
Is it absolutely necessary to always write (tm) after every Mylo? It's so distracting. And, well, corporate. It's gross.
How do we get to a world where we can stop doing that? Or do we already live in one and not everybody knows?
by anfilt on 4/18/18, 1:26 AM
Funny thing I am not sure what fungus it is. However, I have pulled small sheets of material that is almost like leather out from beneath the bark on firewood when splitting it. It's very white kinda soft too.
I wonder if this is the same thing, and then they just dye it.
-Edit- It usually looks like this, but sometimes grows into like a sheet between the bark, and wood. https://projects.ncsu.edu/cals/course/pp728/Armillaria/fans....
by calibas on 4/18/18, 12:33 AM
Cool product, it just bothers me that they describe mycelium as the "underground root structure of mushrooms". That's like saying the rest of a plant is just part of a flower.
by BadassFractal on 4/17/18, 11:22 PM
I found the conversation between Paul Stamets and Joe Rogan to be super interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ . Never really thought much about mushrooms until that episode. This proof of concept seems like a great taste of how much untapped potential fungi have for changing everyday life if we invest more into its research.
by ineedasername on 4/18/18, 3:36 PM
Keep in mind, this only obviates one of the "sustainable" aspects of leather production, the raw untanned hides. From an environmental perspective its chrome tanning and dyeing that are the big hitters, and that would still be necessary here. They could veg tan it instead, but that only slightly lessens the environmental impact at significantly higher cost.
by otakucode on 4/17/18, 10:51 PM
Would this be a good candidate to use as a synthetic skin for touch-able robots and devices? I've thought for awhile that leather might be good for that, but something like this which could be grown with electronics, heating elements, and other things embedded directly into it would probably be much better!
by amelius on 4/18/18, 12:48 PM
Perhaps a silly question, but what does it smell like?
by etrautmann on 4/17/18, 10:17 PM
This is incredibly exciting from an environmental standpoint alone, let alone the implications for future materials research. I'm curious about the processing steps required to create the end product and the resulting durability.
by nautilus12 on 4/18/18, 12:26 PM
Simple question that they didn't answer anywhere: how long until your mylo jacket degrades into mushroom goo?
by carbocation on 4/17/18, 10:24 PM
In their FAQ, I think they should address the question, "Is it possible that mold will grow from Mylo?" I'm sure the answer is no, but they should state it explicitly.
by ChuckMcM on 4/18/18, 2:13 AM
Very cool, but really wonder what the durability is. Is it more like faux leather which might be used as an accent or is it something you could actually use structurally.
by verytrivial on 4/18/18, 6:27 AM
This seems to be another application of the organism used for the meat-substitute sold under the brand https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorn. (Which is rather tasty when prepared right).
by dzhiurgis on 4/19/18, 7:31 AM
One thing I do not get about leather is why do people like it?
One sibling comment mention durability. But otherwise I find it's very heavy, cold, not breathable, sensitive to water and doesn't really look that well.
Sure I do prefer suede office shoes over normal leather, but that's about it. There are probably some good industrial use cases, but I much prefer Gore-tex type of materials and especially Merino wool. It's breathable, doesn't attract smell, somewhat water resistant, doesn't hurt animals too much and is close to cotton. I am rarely into clothing brands, but Icebreaker and Allbirds are making really good stuff that I've been wearing non-stop for years now.
by JonRB on 4/17/18, 9:46 PM
It's awesome to see some more players in this space. I've been keenly watching out for Modern Meadow's updates as well. Looking forward to seeing what this will bring!
by zarify on 4/17/18, 10:02 PM
I wish one of their FAQ down the bottom was about water resistance.
by indescions_2018 on 4/18/18, 1:40 AM
Congrats! This looks like a home run.
Would love to see micrographs of the finished materials. Fungi possess wonderfully dense cobweb-like fibres. A terrific example of highly connected random graphs in nature!
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Scanning-Electron-Microg...
by ValleyOfTheMtns on 4/18/18, 4:57 AM
With lab grown meat on the horizon as a main stream consumer product, it's only natural to wonder whether we could also grow lab grown skin to create synthetic leather.
Perhaps that defeats the purpose of mushroom based "leather" though? You might be able to grow the skin artificially, but it will still need to be tanned at an environmental cost.
by Lazare on 4/17/18, 11:56 PM
Super interesting! However...
...my impression (not dispelled or even challenged by their marketing materials) is that we currently have effectively surplus hides as a side effect of raising animals for meat, milk, and other purposes.
So when they say:
> Livestock use an astonishing 30% of the earth’s entire land surface and cattle-rearing generates more global warming greenhouse gases, as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, than all transportation methods. Put simply, as disposable incomes rise around the globe, we simply can’t meet the demand for meat — and leather consumer goods — using resources available on the planet.
That seems to be about 90% true (but irrelevant) and 10% questionable. Livestock are very expensive environmentally, and as the world gets richer we will certainly struggle to support the current meat-heavy western diet for billions more people. But that still means we're going to be producing an enormous torrent of hides (more now than today). Are we really going to struggle to find enough hides to meet global demand for leather good? Prices for raw inputs have been remarkably flat for the past ~20 years (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU04190108).
Even from the perspective of minimising animal cruelty, leather from animals that would already be raised and killed for meat or because they were ending their useful life on a dairy farm isn't especially problematic.
Further:
> We carefully control the mycelium’s growth conditions to produce a substrate that can be cured and tanned into a soft, supple material that looks and feels like leather.
So it still needs to be cured and tanned. Which no doubt helps it be a great leather substitute, but much of the cost (monetary and environmental) of leather isn't the hides, it's the curing and tanning process, which can use some pretty harsh chemicals. Another reason to be skeptical that this is a huge improvement environmentally.
I also note there's no real discussion of price. If this process can turn out finished leather more cheaply than traditional methods, that's a big sign this is more efficient environmentally. If it can't (and the silence is interesting), it raises the question of whether this is actually worse for the environment. (Which wouldn't be that hard to imagine!)
In short: Totally cool! But so far it doesn't look like a "we're going to get rich while saving the planet" kind of thing, more like a "maybe some vegans will pay a premium for a really good fake leather jacket" kind of thing. Also good! But not as amazing as they try to make it sound.
by splitrocket on 4/17/18, 9:55 PM
This is the future I want.
by devilsattitude on 4/18/18, 12:08 PM
I've gone through the entire article and have taken a moment to check the links and it's amazing very organic and very astonishing nature has the hidden gems for us discover.
by lmilcin on 4/18/18, 7:07 AM
One of those things that feels completely obvious in retrospect yet I envy person that has the mind to think you can grow mushrooms and make leather out of it.
by skykooler on 4/18/18, 2:31 PM
I'm curious as to how this handles high temperatures. Almost all welding gloves, aprons etc. that I have seen are made of leather due to this property.
by lucisferre on 4/18/18, 3:01 AM
Today: Leather; Tomorrow: Space travel!
by nn3 on 4/17/18, 9:52 PM
How do they kill the fungus? I hope it won't continue growing if you wear it.
by Annatar on 4/18/18, 4:11 PM
I wish they were taking on investments; I want to sink some cash into them.
by jeffreyrogers on 4/18/18, 3:36 PM
Two most important things that were left out are durability and price.
by 2_listerine_pls on 4/18/18, 12:00 AM
Is it patented?
by barkingcat on 4/18/18, 2:45 PM
Allows you to travel at warp factor 13!
by classics2 on 4/18/18, 9:38 AM
Tensile strength, tear resistance?
by ommunist on 4/18/18, 3:40 AM
Interesting. But I cannot see any table with reference to mechanical properties of the new materials. MycoWorks instead shed some light upon it on their website. They are using strains of Ganoderma lucidim, and it can be tanned while it grows, not after.
by igitur on 4/17/18, 9:51 PM
Insert obligatory Star Trek Discovery reference here.