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Science

These Living Bricks Use Bacteria To Build Themselves (technologyreview.com) 27

A new living substance can transform from a wet sand mixture into a solid brick, and even help to reproduce copies of itself. From a report: Researchers from the University of Colorado, Boulder, used a type of photosynthetic bacteria that absorbs carbon dioxide, sunlight, and nutrients and produces calcium carbonate -- a rigid compound found in rocks, pearls, and seashells. They grew the bacteria in a warm mixture of salt water and other nutrients and combined it with sand and gelatin. The mixture was poured into a mold, and as it cooled the gelatin set, forming a "scaffold" able to support further bacterial growth. The bacteria deposited calcium carbonate throughout the scaffold, turning the soft sludge into a harder substance after about a day. The mixture looks green initially, but the color fades as it dries. The research was published in the journal Matter and was funded by DARPA, the US military's research arm.
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These Living Bricks Use Bacteria To Build Themselves

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  • Brilliant!
  • If this technique is used in a sunny but humid climate, say Florida, could your intended fishing shack decide to form itself into a Trump Tower?

    • The title is misleading. They don't "build themselves" by any stretch of the imagination. This still requires being hand-molded and hand-stacked like normal bricks made out of normal clay. What they've found here is bacterial cement that will make you fancy green bricks without a kiln. No word on whether this is cost effective, but they still fade to brown like the normal bricks too.

      • You could, i suppose, use a larger form. For example, one the size of a building.

        • Hmmm. I hadn't suspected the material would be tougher, much less that much tougher. Still, a very compelling theory if it can be realistically applied.

    • by balbeir ( 557475 )
      Are you saying it would work well in a swamp?
    • Yes.

  • And it'll have a much better strength to weight ratio.

    • Rice blows mac&cheese out of the water for cementing purposes though, and dries faster. The question remains whether these bricks have got anything on the practicality of much older brick recipes.

      • But with the right type of macaroni you'll get an interlocking lattice which will crystallize nicely into a stronger structure.

        • My guess is that would probably be more useful for building aircraft than walls, but I follow your logic...

        • Gotta wonder about the water soluable question, though. Just about anything based on a pasta-glue would disintegrate when it got too wet. I'd also wonder about vermin eating & weakening it over time. I haven't heard about any type of microbes which can produce a waterproof material. What we need is to convince these little bastards to crap carbon fiber or that emulsion used for fiberglass hardener. :-)
  • They should try using journal Matter to build the bricks.
  • Assuming the amount of energy required to set this up and run it produces less carbon than that absorbed by the bacteria this could be an extremely good way to sequester carbon as CaCO3 is a much better long term storage medium than wood from growing trees.

    • by piojo ( 995934 )

      It's not only good for carbon sequestration, but it would reduce the CO2 emissions from concrete production. Concrete production creates a ridiculous amount of CO2, so alternative materials would be a boon. In many countries, all houses and buildings are made out of concrete. More details about the problem here:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • Be careful with what you do.
    • I was thinking more along the line of Ice-Nine in Cat's Cradle.

      I nifty scientist develops a substance that causes water to freeze above normal freezing temperature. The military sponsored it to along troops to cross water easier . . . walking over ice instead of swimming through water.

      When someone mistakenly drops the stuff into the ocean . . . oops . . . ice-ball planet.

      Now DARPA is sponsoring stuff to turn mud into bricks. Maybe for the same reason?

      I guess Kurt Vonnegut is not [Captain Kirk Voice] "

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Can't find anything on the InterWebs, but I remember hearing a news story in the '80's about a company in FL that was using a low-voltage electric charge on a chicken-wire dorm to attract corals. They were going to use the process to make permeable drainage pipes, which would be useful in FL and other places where groundwater accumulation can lead to things like sinkholes or swamp-like conditions during flooding.

    IIRC, they were saying that in the warm water off southern Florida, they could create one secti

    • "Can't find anything on the InterWebs,"

      It's full of shitting bricks.

    • Can't find anything on the InterWebs, but I remember hearing a news story in the '80's about a company in FL that was using a low-voltage electric charge on a chicken-wire dorm to attract corals.

      It doesn't attract corals. Instead it causes calcium to precipitate out of seawater, loosely stuck to the chicken-wire. It's a soft, crumbly layer that flakes off at the slightest disturbance. You don't get anything remotely like cement, for pipes or anything else.

  • Even if they declare it to be in brick form, the bacteria still need carbon dioxide, so the brick needs to get built up. How so different from coral, then?

  • Like I said in the Frankenstein Material posted a day later, Dollar General has been using it for years:

    https://www.southernthing.com/why-are-there-so-many-dollar-generals-2641425806.html

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