Researchers at The Ohio State University have proposed that common edible fungi could change how we process and store digital data. The study details how mushrooms like shiitake can be grown and “trained” to act as organic memristors. A memristor is a data processor that remembers past electrical states. 

In experiments, the shiitake devices showed repeatable “memory effects,” similar to semiconductor chips. This proves that mushroom-based devices could be used to create low-cost, eco-friendly, “brain-inspired computing components” that “don’t need a lot of power for standby”.