Wood-Based Computer Chips Could Make Electronics Biodegradable

Good old wood. It's everywhere! And soon it may be in your computing devices as the newest, most cutting-edge semiconductor material.

Or at least the first semiconductor material that's fully adapted to the fact that the average consumer chews through portable electronics like they're toilet paper. Consumers, after all, demand not just the fastest and slimmest devices, they want—implicitly, at least—devices that can go in the trash.

From that perspective, wood seems pretty reasonable.

The wooden semiconductor is a real thing, thanks to researchers at the University of Wisconsin working in partnership with the US Department of Agriculture Forest Products Laboratory. The new device, which basically just acts like plant fertilizer in the environment, 

is described

 in the current issue of Nature Communications.