> What they call “cultured wood” is the arboreal equivalent of lab-grown meat. By growing tree cells in giant vats fed with sugar, the company aims to produce wood more efficiently and with a lower environmental impact than cutting down and processing actual trees.
Could also see additive manufacturing the same way, coax trees, shells, etc to grow into desired shapes.
Bioinspired Additive Manufacturing of Hierarchical Materials: From Biostructures to Functions https://spj.science.org/doi/10.34133/research.0164
Recent Advancements in Biomimetic 3D Printing Materials With Enhanced Mechanical Properties https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/materials/articles/10.3...
Part of a six part series on bio-inspired structures https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/10886/3d-printin...
Engineering living and regenerative fungal-bacterial biocomposite structures https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34857911/
For programmable biological robots see https://www.drmichaellevin.org/
*edit, interesting
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2456589-a-sliver-of-lab... https://archive.is/xBO16
> What they call “cultured wood” is the arboreal equivalent of lab-grown meat. By growing tree cells in giant vats fed with sugar, the company aims to produce wood more efficiently and with a lower environmental impact than cutting down and processing actual trees.