A friend gets in touch to let me know that it’s not necessarily scary AI cyber-brains that are going to end humanity. We also need to be wary of robotically-augmented mushrooms.

I’m not sure what sci-fi novel this particular bunch of researchers last read, but something has compelled them to invent a robot which is controlled by the whims of living fungi.

The biohybrid robot uses electrical signals from an edible type of mushroom called a king trumpet in order to move around and sense its environment.

Developed by an interdisciplinary team from Cornell University in the US and Florence University in Italy, the machine could herald a new era of living robotics.

I feel like I could probably outrun it in its present incarnation though:

The Independent article we learned about this in also revealed the existence of a project called OpenWorm which is looking to upload a digital replica of a worm’s brain into some Lego.