New Scientist: Maximizing the amount of material that can be included in space launch cargos is a significant task—boxes and other items have already been converted into flat sheets that take up less space in the cargo and can be assembled in orbit. Lynn Rothschild of NASA's Ames Research Center and her colleagues have now gone one step further by taking the plastic sheets out of the equation entirely. They genetically engineered Escherichia coli bacteria to produce polystyrene and P(3HB) plastics. After the plastic is processed into sheets, a black marker is used to draw lines on them; when the sheets are placed under IR light, the dark areas contract and the sheets fold along the lines. The team also experimented with attaching Bacillus spores to cellulose strips that are strategically placed on the plastic. The spores expand and contract based on changes in humidity, causing the plastic to bend. Further work is needed to make the process practical. Intentionally sending E. coli bacteria to space is risky, however, because they could contaminate the food supplies.
