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