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Bacteria To Protect Against Quakes

Posted by kdawson on from the shake-them-cilia dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "If you live near the sea, chances are high that your home is built over sandy soil. And if an earthquake strikes, deep and sandy soils can turn to liquid with disastrous consequences for the buildings built above them. Now, US researchers have found a way to use bacteria to steady buildings against earthquakes by turning these sandy soils into rocks. 'Starting from a sand pile, you turn it back into sandstone,' the chief researcher explained. It is already possible to inject chemicals into the ground to reinforce it, but this technique can have toxic effects on soil and water. In contrast, the use of common bacteria to 'cement' sands has no harmful effects on the environment. So far this method is limited to labs and the researchers are working on scaling their technique. Here are more references and a picture showing how unstable ground can aggravate the consequences of an earthquake."

11 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. No harmful effects by Silver+Sloth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In contrast, the use of common bacteria to 'cement' sands has no harmful effects on the environment. Didn't they say the same about Cane Toads?
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    init 11 - for when you need that edge.
    1. Re:No harmful effects by beavis88 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And kudzu!

    2. Re:No harmful effects by Alicat1194 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You'd think at the very least it would change the water drainage patterns in the area (and thus the water table, local waterways etc, etc)

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      You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
    3. Re:No harmful effects by AlexanderDitto · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Won't somebody please think of the worms?!

      Oh humans! Messing with things we don't know aren't harmful. Things like this are nearly always used before they've had a chance to be researched thoroughly, leading to something going horribly, horribly wrong, like giant mutating monsters or zombies or alien attacks.

      Maybe I've just been watching too many horror flicks.... Either way, I should hope these people would proceed with extreme caution. I don't like the thought of the soil turning into one big slab of sheet rock. Where would my food come from?

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      No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring.
  2. Re:Research needed! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why is it that we allow nature to run freely, in an uncontrolled manner, and think that's safe, but when things are done controlled, people get scared?

    Primarily because humans have proven themselves to be remarkably adept at fucking things up, even when we have the best of intentions.

    Nature "running freely" represents an equilibrium reached through 4+ billions years of physical and biological evolution here on planet earth. Now along come the humans, and before we even understand a fraction of a percent of the natural processes at work we start altering all kinds of fundamental systems.

    Maybe Kurt Vonnegut was right after all ...
  3. Call me daft but... by symes · · Score: 2, Insightful

    surely the best way forward is to not build houses on sand in the first place?

    1. Re:Call me daft but... by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'd call you daft if you built a castle in a swamp, but you're right that there is a grain of truth in not building your house on sand. It's so dumb to build your house on sand that Jesus even spoke a parable about it for people who listen to his words, but don't actually put them into action.

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      God spoke to me.
    2. Re:Call me daft but... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Insightful

      surely the best way forward is to not build houses on sand in the first place?

      Sorry, you must be new here. The way we do it is to encourage the wealthy to build mansions in unreasonable places and then bail them out from disasters with the public treasury, funded by broad-based regressive taxes.

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      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    3. Re:Call me daft but... by ultranova · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Though I'm not one to ignore human suffering, I don't give it the same weight when it's obviously self inflicted. San Franciscans who suffer loss in earthquakes and Floridians who get hit by hurricanes simply don't "rate" with me on the tear duct scale.

      I was unaware that you can choose not to be born in San Francisco or Florida.

      They knew it was coming. They ignored the probability, not possibility, of the disaster. When a Floridian says, "I couldn't get hurricane insurance and now I've lost everything," with tears in his eyes, I listen for the part where his family is alive and well, and then I simply ignore him as a fool.

      Logically speaking, and discounting hyperbole in "I lost everything", someone who loses everything in a hurricane likely had no significant savings (since otherwise he would still have them). This means he's not capable of relocating, since that requires considerable financial resources. If he does manage to save some money, he likely has larger risks (fire insurance, car insurance, a newer and safer car, health insurance, etc) that should be mitigated first.

      Not everyone who fails to plan for every possible disaster does so out of foolishness. Someone might well know he lives in an unsafe place, but if he doesn't have enough money to move, he can't and that's that.

      World isn't just, and people who get hit with natural or any other kind of disasters usually don't deserve it, nor are they any more foolish than anyone else. They are just unlucky.

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      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  4. Re:Slashvertisement... by EMeta · · Score: 2, Insightful
    ...which is something we would care about if he didn't consistently submit interesting articles. Some of them are rather on the fringes of science, certainly, but isn't that the kind of stuff we want to know about perhaps before it's truly viable? He's started linking to the original article in all his submissions, and if he has more information he's put together himself on his site, I'm more than glad to give him some clicks for this service, if I'm interested enough to want to see said extras.

    Seriously, more often than not, he submits really interesting stuff. I wish more people would emulate that, not less.

  5. Help for Venice? by boo+pixie · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I wonder is this can provide help for sinking cities like Venice. I don't think the Venitian Lagoon is that sandy, but at some depth there might be enough to work with. As long as it doesnt just turn everything into a bigger rock that will sink faster.

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