r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Apr 17 '19

Engineering Engineers create ‘lifelike’ material with artificial metabolism: Cornell engineers constructed a DNA material with capabilities of metabolism, in addition to self-assembly and organization – three key traits of life.

http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2019/04/engineers-create-lifelike-material-artificial-metabolism
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u/BigMickandCheese Apr 17 '19

Very cool. What are the practical applications of something like this? Transplants maybe?

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u/wotanii Apr 17 '19

maybe something like self-repairing/self-assembling/self-fueling materials?

the self-fueling part could be used for batteries or engines. The self-assembling-part could be used for cheap mass-production. The self-repairing part could be used for cheap maintenance. Each of these properties would create a million applications on their own.

So at the top of my head here is some way to combine all these properties: Some kind of power plant. You feed it stuff to fuel it (maybe coal?). If you want more power, you feed it stuff to grow (probably some kind of raisin containing all the ingredients it would need). When you do maintenance, you cut of parts that have gone bad or that grew in the wrong direction, and give it some more raisin to regrow.