Bricks Alive! Scientists Create Living Concrete
https://www-nytimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/science/construction-concrete-bacteria-photosynthesis.amp.html Bricks Alive! Scientists Create Living Concrete "A Frankenstein material" is teeming with — and ultimately made by — photosynthetic microbes. And it can reproduce. By Amos Zeeberg Jan. 15, 2020 Wil Srubar, left, a structural engineer at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and materials science and engineering PhD student, Sarah Williams, holding bricks of building matter made from cyanobacteria and other materials. CU Boulder College of Engineering & Applied Science For centuries, builders have been making concrete roughly the same way: by mixing hard materials like sand with various binders, and hoping it stays fixed and rigid for a long time to come. Now, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder, has created a rather different kind of concrete — one that is alive and can even repr