Bacterial Films Could Lead to Self-Repairing Materials. MSU leads the way.

Imagine that an earthquake creates cracks in San Francisco’s Bay Bridge. Instead of collapsing, the bridge’s girders patch up their own fractures.

That’s the vision behind an unlikely collaboration between an industrial designer and a microbiologist who think they’ve found the key to creating materials with some of the characteristics of life.

"In papermaking facilities, the pulping liquor contains a lot of organic carbon, which grows huge biofilms," said Paul Sturman, a senior research engineer at the Center for Biofilm Engineering http://www.erc.montana.edu/ , a National Science Foundation-funded engineering research center at Montana State. "The bacterial colony is so thick that you can pick it up and hold it in your hand."

By Alexis Madrigal

Full Story: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/10/biofilms