Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Engineered Living Building Materials
Architectural coral is an idea proposed by Larry Niven in his 1968 novel A Gift From Earth. It works like this:
...A genetic manipulation of ordinary sea coral, it was the cheapest building material known. The only real cost was in the plastic balloon that guided the growth of the coral and enclosed the coral's special air-borne food.
Here's a recent paper about how living building materials might be bioengineered for use by architects and builders:
In this study, microorganism-precipitated calcium carbonate conferred high fracture toughness to the LBMs. More broadly, LBMs represent a platform technology whereby biology can be leveraged to potentially deliver multiple functionalities to infrastructure materials by design.
(Via Biomineralization and Successive Regeneration of Engineered Living Building Materials.)
Read more about this idea in this article by Wil Srubar
Assistant Professor of Architectural Engineering and Materials Science, University of Colorado Boulder:
Living architecture is moving from the realm of science fiction into the laboratory as interdisciplinary teams of researchers turn living cells into microscopic factories. At the University of Colorado Boulder, I lead the Living Materials Laboratory. Together with collaborators in biochemistry, microbiology, materials science and structural engineering, we use synthetic biology toolkits to engineer bacteria to create useful minerals and polymers and form them into living building blocks that could, one day, bring buildings to life.
The remnants of the shaping balloon, which gave all architectural coral buildings their telltale bulge, had been carefully scraped away...
(Read more about Larry Niven's architectural coral)
Engineered living building materials (LBMs) use biology to confer multiple functionalities to materials for the built environment. Microorganisms can be leveraged for multiple purposes in the design of LBMs, including increasing the rate of manufacturing, imparting mechanical benefit, and sustaining biological function. In this work, we used photosynthetic microorganisms to biomineralize inert sand-gelatin scaffolds to create LBMs. These materials are capable of exponential regeneration of the living component in response to physical switches. Thus, from one starting generation of material, multiple regenerations are produced on demand.
...what if buildings – walls, roofs, floors, windows – were actually alive – grown, maintained and healed by living materials? Imagine architects using genetic tools that encode the architecture of a building right into the DNA of organisms, which then grow buildings that self-repair, interact with their inhabitants and adapt to the environment.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 3/13/2020)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Material ")
Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.' - Samuel R. Delany
Nano-Chainmail 2D Mechanically Interlocked Polymer
'Nemourlon armor of reasonable weight resists penetration by most fragments and any bullet that is not both reasonably heavy and fairly high-velocity.' - Jerry Pournelle, 1976.
Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.' - Roger Zelazny, 1966.
FlexRAM Liquid Metal RAM And One Particular SF Movie Robot
'Its lines wavered, flowed, and then painfully reformed.' - Philip K. Dick, 1957.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Replace The Smartphone With A Connected Edge Node For AI Inference
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
Artificial Skin For Robots Is Coming Right Along
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
Robot Guard Dog On Duty
I might also be thinking of K-9 from Doctor Who.
Wearable Artificial Fabric Muscles
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
BrainBridge Concept Transplant Of Human Head Proposed
'Briquet’s head seemed to think that to find and attach a new body to her head was as easy as to fit and sew a new dress.'
Google's Nano Banana Pro Presents Handwritten Math Solutions
'...copy was turned out in a charming and entirely feminine handwriting.'
Edible Meat-Like Fungus Like Barbara Hambly's Slunch?
'It was almost unheard of for slunch to spread that fast...'
Sunday Robotics 'Memo' Bot Has Unique Training Glove
'He then started hand movements of definite pattern...'
Woman Marries Computer, Vonnegut's Dream Comes True
'Men are made of protoplasm... Lasts forever.'
Natural Gait With Prosthetic Connected To Nervous System
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain...'
Spidery 'Walk Me' Toyota Autonomous Wheel Chair Like Star Wars
Walk along with the emperor.
Dancing Robots Taught Dance Moves
'A clockwork figure would be the thing for you...'
Proof Of Robothood - Not A Person
'Who are you people? - Show 'em.'
Indonesian Clans Battle
'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
The 'Last Mile' In China Crowded With Delivery Robots
Yes, it's a delivery robot. On wheels.
Tornyol Microdrone Kills Mosquitoes
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
