Dutch Take On Sidewalk Crack Scourge With Self-Healing Concrete

Sidewalk cracks — they’re serious business. Stepping on even one of them can break your mother’s back! That’s a lot of stress for a kid walking home from school to deal with.

Well, Dutch researchers may have a solution to the sidewalk crack blight — they’ve created self-healing concrete. This concrete is filled with little pods that contain bacteria. These pods are broken open when the concrete cracks and the bacteria, when exposed to water, creates calcite, a hard limestone-like material, which fills in the crack and keeps your poor mom’s back intact.

Hit the jump for a quick video about the new “bio-concrete”…

Hmmm, bacteria powered self-healing concrete — now that I think about it, this stuff sounds kind of ominous. Maybe I’ve just played too many video games, but I can’t help but think somebody’s going to make the Rock Monster from the first Mega Man out of this stuff.

via io9

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