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Bacteria Used To Fix Cracked Concrete
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the UK's University of Newcastle have created a new type of bacteria that generates glue to hold together cracks in concrete structures — that means everything from concrete sidewalks to buildings that have been damaged by earthquakes. When the cells have been germinated, they burrow deep into the concrete until they reach the bottom. At this point, the concrete repair process is activated, and the cells split into three types that produce calcium carbonate crystals, act as reinforcing fibers, and produce glue which acts as a binding agent to fill concrete gaps."
RTFA, it's not very long and explains just that fact you need; it does know when to stop.
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
An older article with considerably more detail. Not sure if it's the same bacteria.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19386-for-selfhealing-concrete-just-ad
Several hundred years? Try several thousand.
This engineered bacterium system was entered into the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, so there's a lot more information about this project at the team's project page. In particular, there's a more thorough description of the kill switch the team engineered to prevent the spread of this bacterium beyond the target environment, the underlying mechanism being that sucrose must be available in the environment to prevent the bacterium from producing a toxin which kills itself.
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
Right, and battery acid is really good at curing the common cold.
I dunno where you're getting this info, but no, bullets certainly do not "sterilize" anything. One of the leading causes of death historically has been infection. We're better at dealing with it today, but infections still occur on a regular basis:
"A gunshot is never sutured closed as the infection rate is very high. Bullets drag clothing into the wound and along the bullet track. Since clothing is of course not sterile, the wound is prone to infection if closed. Open wounds almost never get infected."
http://www.tacticalmedicalpacks.com/files/Combat_Tactics_Trauma_article.pdf
"We have presented a series of 120 consecutive operative cases of penetrating wounds of the abdomen-72 gunshot wounds and 48 stab wounds. The majority of patients were in the 18 to 40 age group. The infection rate was 22% for gunshot wounds and 4.8% for knife wounds."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2609419/pdf/jnma00480-0069.pdf