Dutch designer Teresa van Dongen has developed a sustainable light source from living organisms that require regular nourishment in return for electricity. More about Teresa van Dongen's Electric Life installation uses living bacteria to generate electricity
Bacteria cultures grown on resin plates decorated these LED lamps by designer Jan Klingler, on show as part of the Young Swedish Design exhibition at ArkDes in Stockholm. More about Jan Klingler's Bacteria lamps are "modern fossils" as well as lights
Spanish architect Alberto Villanueva's Mars Utopia concept would see the planet transformed into an inhabitable environment using towers formed by bacteria (+ slideshow). More about Architect proposes Mars Utopia towers to terraform red planet into breathable environment
Teams from MIT Media Lab and the Royal College of Art have used bacteria to design a "bio-skin" fabric that peels back in reaction to sweat and humidity (+ slideshow). More about MIT Media Lab's BioLogic material opens and closes in response to humidity
Designer Ori Elisar has developed a bacterial ink and grown typographical symbols in a petri dish. Here are more stories featuring microbes, including a lamp powered by glowing octopus bacteria (pictured), clothes grown from single-cell organisms and cheese made from the sweat and tears of celebrities.
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Jerusalem designer Ori Elisar has used a bacteria-based ink to grow a Hebrew alphabet in the lab for his Living Language type experiment. More about Ori Elisar grows typography in a lab using bacteria-filled petri dishes
Graduate shows 2015: Royal College of Art graduate YunTing Lin has created a new material from plant fibres and naturally fermented cellulose, and used it to form a storage system and speakers (+ slideshow). More about Nanocellulose Fibreboard is an all-natural replacement for MDF and moulded plastic
Designer and researcher Neri Oxman has successfully 3D-printed one of her "wearable skins" and filled its hollow tubes with a bacterial luminescent liquid to represent how it could host photosynthetic organisms (+ slideshow). More about Neri Oxman 3D prints "photosynthetic wearable" to host living organisms
A biologist and a designer are developing a bacteria and yeast "micro-factory" that could one day enable consumers to grow their own products at home (+ slideshow). More about Growduce "micro-factory" concept would allow users to grow their own products
Royal College of Art student Paul Gong has imagined how synthetic biology could be used to modify the human body so it can consume and digest rotten food. More about Rotten food becomes palatable in human-hyena synthetic biology scenario
Dezeen and MINI Frontiers: Dutch designer Teresa van Dongen explains how she created a lamp powered by bioluminescent bacteria usually found on octopuses, in this movie filmed in Eindhoven. More about Teresa van Dongen's bioluminescent lamp is "a new way to create light"
Dutch designer Teresa van Dongen has filled a glass tube with octopus bacteria to create a zero-electricity lamp that glows blue when disturbed (+ movie). More about Bioluminescent lamp by Teresa van Dongen glows blue with octopus bacteria
Designer Sammy Jobbins Wells has stretched material made by bacteria over structural frames to create a set of wearable objects (+ slideshow). More about Bacteria produces textiles for Skin body adornments by Sammy Jobbins Wells
Dezeen and MINI Frontiers: Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde is exploring ways of using bio-luminescent bacteria found in jellyfish and mushrooms to create glow-in-the-dark trees that could replace street lights. More about Glowing trees could be used "instead of street lighting" says Daan Roosegaarde
Dezeen and MINI Frontiers: Suzanne Lee of BioCouture explains how she makes clothes that are "grown using bacteria" in this movie filmed at the Wearable Futures conference in London in December. More about Microbes are "the factories of the future"
Edinburgh College of Art student Peter Trimble has built a portable machine for manufacturing furniture from sand, urine and bacteria (+ slideshow). More about Stools made of sand and urine by Peter Trimble
News: American biotechnology company Bioglow has applied synthetic biology processes to create plants that glow, which its founder claims are "truly the first of their kind." More about World's first glow-in-the-dark plant genetically engineered
Bacteria from personalities including artist Olafur Eliasson, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist and chef Michael Pollan have been used to make human cheese as part of an exhibition about synthetic biology in Dublin. More about Olafur Eliasson's tears used to make human cheese
Buildings in the future could feature floors embedded with synthetic bacteria that eat dirt and clean your feet, according to this project by design student Tashia Tucker (+ slideshow). More about Bio-surfaces containing "hacked" bacteria could clean your feet as you walk on them
To prove that germs aren't all bad, Paris-based studio Bold-design came up with an activity kit that uses bacteria to turn sand from the beach into stone souvenirs (+ slideshow). More about Memorabilia Factory by Bold-design