[ericskiff]

Very interesting! I was curious how this related to Roman self-healing concrete: https://news.mit.edu/2023/roman-concrete-durability-lime-cas... and it seems like this is an entirely novel method, where little capsules of bacteria break open when a crack appears and then "heal" the crack through growth until they consume their food stock.

Both the capsule (alginate-based) and bacteria are common and safe

[willmadden]

It's the same idea, but instead of calcium carbonate leaking out of quicklime in Roman concrete, it's done by bacteria.

The questions are if the bacteria will survive 50-100 years or more in the real world, and if this can be done economically at scale. My guess is no, it's more of a science experiment or something to be used in niche applications.