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Swiss scientists have created a new plastic-like material that's flexible, biodegradable, and even edible. The secret? It's still alive. The material, which was created by a team from Empa in Switzerland, manages to balance biodegradability with toughness and versatility – a feat that is far from easy in materials science.
The resulting gel-like material is called living fiber dispersions, or LFD, and it can be molded into many different forms. It also makes full use of the extra substances produced by mushrooms, whereBy developing a specific strain of the split-gill, the researchers were able to encourage the growth of two molecules in particular: polysaccharide schizophyllan and hydrophobin. These molecules are crucial in giving LFD its appealing properties.One possible use of the material is as a thin film with a very high tensile strength. The researchers suggest it could potentially be used in, a substance that enables two other materials to mix and bind together when they otherwise wouldn't. Emulsifiers are important in food and cosmetics production, found in everything from ice cream to shampoo.The researchers tested the new material as an emulsifier. mushroom, this LFD is completely non-toxic too – you can even eat it without any problems. When it comes to foods and cosmetics, that's another big plus for the material. There's the potential for plenty of future research here too, because the team thinks that the approach used here could be tweaked toThe researchers are hoping to find more and more practical uses for LFD over time, following in a long line of
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