Meet the French luthier making music out of mushrooms

Providence (United States) (AFP) - Leave mushroom spores in a mold for a couple weeks and they'll bloom into a puffy material akin to brie, says Rachel Rosenkrantz, a sustainability-minded guitar-maker innovating with biomaterials. Once her mycelium, the root-like structure of fungus that produces mushrooms, mimics the rind of a soft-ripened cheese Rosenkrantz dehydrates it into a lightweight, biodegradable building material -- in this case, the body of a guitar. The musician trained as an industrial designer embarked on her career as a luthier -- maker of string instruments -- about a decade ...