CAN YOU BUILD A HOUSE WITH BACTERIA?

More than 1.2 trillion bricks are produced worldwide each year. Until now, during the course of this production 800 million tons of the “climate killer” carbon dioxide are emitted annually. Now thanks to a new method, the production of one of the world’s oldest building materials is ready to be made much more environmentally friendly. The basis for this innovative brick is sand, which gets placed in a mold along with bacteria. The bacteria are fed with a nutrient solution that contains calcium, which triggers calcification in the microorganisms and thereby causes the sand to harden. It takes two to five days for a brick to be finished, the same amount of time a regular brick would have to be fired in a kiln. But the new process does not require high temperatures, and the liquid can be reused as a fertilizer thanks to the deposits of bacteria.

A sneeze can travel as fast as 100 miles per hour— equivalent to the speed of hurricane-force winds. Such energy is necessary to get rid of all the particles that are irritating the nose. If the number of particles is too large, then we need to sneeze multiple times. That’s because when the sneezing reflex is triggered, the volume of air in the lungs and pharynx is compressed and the pressure that’s required to eject them all with just one sneeze would be too great. Pressure is the reason you should not stop a sneeze by holding your nose, since the pent-up pressure can escape into the middle ear and cause damage there.