Reading Room / bacteria
Growing molecular reads
Bacteria, the sheet they spin and the data they archive.
What a cell pushes out through its own surface, and why the sheet is really made in the drying.
MATTER
03/07
start here
Bacteria, from the molecule up
Bacterial cellulose synthase, pushing fibrils out at the cell surface. Then the drying, which locks them. Then a green that has no dye in it anywhere, and behaves nothing like the blue in spirulina.
Foundational · Molecular · Framework
The rest of the shelf
02
The pellicle, and what drying does to it
Nanofibrils pack down and lock with hydrogen bonds as the water leaves. Strength and clarity both come out of that packing, which puts your material decision in the drying rack.
MOLECULAR · structure
03
A green with no pigment in it
The cells pack into a lattice and the colour comes from the spacing. One gene shifts it.
MOLECULAR · colour
04
Anything you want in the sheet goes in while it grows
Add it during the grow and it threads into the network. Add it after and it sits on the surface, waiting to come off.
MOLECULAR · fabcrication
Molecules Covered
cellulose
bacterial cellulose synthase
Glossary
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