Magic insulating mushrooms

Just as blue jean insulation becomes the hip new choice for green builders the world over, Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre, recent graduates of Rensselear Polytechnic Institute, have developed a new type of green insulation made from something far stranger and far tastier than denim: They're making insulation out of mushrooms.

And talk about being resourceful, the former students actually created their patented "Greensulate" (an organic, fire retardant material) with mushrooms they grew under their beds.

According to an article in the Dunkirk, New York Observer, recent tests at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have shown that Greensulate is competitive with most of the traditional fiberglass insulation on the market: A 1-inch-thick sample of the material had a 2.9 R-value.

And, because Greensulate is made of water, flour, oyster mushroom spores and perlite, it might eventually be possible to grow and assemble the insulation onsite. How green is that?

Read more about the stuff here.

Image sxc.hu, hagit M.