To reduce electronic waste and cut greenhouse gas emissions from plastic, future computer chips might use a substrate made of mushrooms. This isn’t something out of the Mario Bros. movie, either.
That doesn’t mean you’ll have toadstools mounted on the motherboard. A paper published in the journal Science Advances (and spotted by ZDNet) details the process that uses only mushrooms’ skin to create a biodegradable base for electronics.
Electronics can get hot in use, and soldering requires high temperatures, so the fungal substrate was tested and found stable at over 250 degrees Celsius (480 degrees Fahrenheit). The mushroom base was even tested for use as a printed circuit board and a battery.
This “green” solution comes from the reishi fungus, a deep, auburn-colored mushroom with a strong, wood-like structure that grows on dead hardwood. Reishi is also a health tonic, so after the skin is removed, the remainder can be used for tea or other purposes.
This versatile mycelium is also flexible, having a thickness similar to paper. With a bending test of 2,000 times with a radius as tight as 5mm, it might be a good solution to meet the needs of advanced electronics inside wearables.
While plastic is based on petroleum (from oil) and off-gases CO2, mushrooms absorb CO2, sequestering this greenhouse gas until they biodegrade cleanly. That makes a mycelium substrate a great solution for disposable electronics that are accumulating at an alarming rate.
Since these results are currently in the lab, it’s unlikely mushroom-based chips will make your next computer more sustainable, but it’s good to know that new solutions are being discovered to solve the growing problem of e-waste.
This isn’t the first time scientists have looked to nature for electronics, as some researchers are looking into transistors that are made out of wood.
Google just dropped its latest AI model, Gemini 4 Carbon, designed to tackle complex coding jobs and cybersecurity threats. The company claims it can work through difficult engineering problems for days, finding hidden bugs and developing fixes across large codebases.
Gemini 4 Carbon also takes the top spot on Artificial Analysis' updated Intelligence Index, scoring 59 points, pushing out Claude Opus 5.5, OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra, and even its own predecessor Gemini 4 Argon.
Apple has just introduced a redesigned MacBook Pro with a few bells and whistles. The focus this time around is on a thinner and lighter build, and an upgrade to a touch-sensitive OLED screen without any ugly notch. And, in case you were wondering, there is definitely a price premium to pay for these niceties, which also include a glowing Apple logo at the back. What if you wanted to get the best that Apple has to offer? Well, the numbers are finally here.
For a mere $14,549, you can get yourself the fully kitted 16-inch MacBook Pro PROLED XDR with the beefiest laptop chip that Apple has to offer, and the best memory configuration in tow. For nearly $15,000, you treat yourself to the 16-inch version of the laptop with a nano-texture glass layer on the screen to reduce reflections and glare.
Apple has unveiled its first-ever touchscreen MacBook Pro. The company seems a bit confused about the naming, calling it the "MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display," which is tough to remember. If you look past that and review the full spec sheets, you might ask a genuine question: what are the differences between the touchscreen and non-touchscreen versions?
Given that Apple continues to sell both variants together, that's a genuine question. Luckily, you don't have to spend more time lining up the spec sheets side by side and hunting for differences hidden in the fine print. I took that bullet for you. Here's everything that's different between the PROLED XDR Display and the regular MacBook Pro.