COLLEGE STATION, Texas — We might not need rockets full of building supplies to start construction on Mars. Scientists have created living communities of bacteria and fungi that could survive in ...

What if your house could respond to a rupture in one of its structural beams by simply repairing itself, or bridges could patch up their own cracks the moment they appear? As fanciful as it sounds, ...

Water pollution is a growing concern globally, with research estimating that chemical industries discharge 300 to 400 megatonnes (600-800 billion pounds) of industrial waste into bodies of water each ...

With just an incubator and some broth, researchers can grow reusable filters made of bacteria to clean up polluted water, detect chemicals in the environment, and protect surfaces from rust and mold.

Scientists developed a method to make engineered living materials out of a much wider range of ingredients than is currently possible. (Nanowerk News) Sustainable materials—powered by sunlight and ...

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) used hydrogels mixed with dinoflagellates and single-celled microalgae to make mechanoluminescent living composites that are very strong ...

Rice University researchers have revealed novel sequence-structure-property relationships for customizing engineered living materials (ELMs), enabling more precise control over their structure and how ...

(Nanowerk News) The coming decades present a host of challenges for our built environments: a rising global population combined with increasing urbanization; crumbling infrastructure and dwindling ...

Some engineered living materials can combine the strength of run-of-the-mill building materials with the responsiveness of living systems. Think self-healing concrete or paint that changes color when ...

Sustainable materials—powered by sunlight and living microbes—that remove pollutants from water, release oxygen into a wound or heal themselves after damage could become simpler to create thanks to ...