SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
MIT's Tangible Media Group, part of MIT Media Lab, has a project called bioLogic that is working on growing actuators rather than manufacturing them:
The roots of their research can be dated back to the past with the discovery of a bacteria Bacillus subtilis natto; the microorganism lived inside dry rice stalks and were in turn woven into bags for soybeans .
This bacteria became an established fermentation tool for the preparation of nattō, a soybean-based dish in Japan.
Now they are using the bacteria in a new way—it becomes a nanoactuator that expands and shrinks based on atmospheric moisture or the sweat of the skin. As Gizmodo wrote, the team was interested in the possibilities: "if natto's expansion and contraction could be carefully calibrated, perhaps it could act more like a machine than an unpredictable organism. Perhaps it could act more like an actuator."
Natto's key feature as a food is a slimy mucus drooled over rice. Perhaps that will be more pleasant to wear than eat.
(Score: 2) by jcross on Monday November 02 2015, @07:04PM
A downside would be if these actuators made your undergarments smell like natto *BEFORE* you sweated in them and left them in a pile at the bottom of your gym locker for a couple days*.
* For those of you who haven't tried natto, it pretty much does smell like dirty gym socks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @07:09PM
The smell isn't just from the fermentation either. The smell of B. sub isn't particularly appealing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 03 2015, @02:17AM
I've smelled natto (from a grocery store in America) and to my gaijin nose it smelled like fecal matter.