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WorldWeird: Real Life Dune

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      CommentAuthorconner
    • CommentTimeApr 20th 2009
     (5646.1)
    Well! Then! I say unto YOU! Send! Men! To summon... SUSTAINABILITYYYYYY

    This guy, for a university landscape design project, came up with a a proposal for a "6,000km-long wall of artificially solidified sandstone architecture that would span the Sahara Desert, east to west, offering a combination of refugee housing and a 'green wall' against the future spread of the desert."

    Real life Dune through the release of sand-solidifying bacteria over a 6,000 km long area, having massive effects on the local and continental environment: "One of the most interesting aspects of the project, I think, is that this solidified dunescape is created through a particularly novel form of 'sustainable construction' – that is, through a kind of infection of the earth."

    Mad science. Brilliant, insane, huge scale stuff.

    This is the kind of mad science we need to get behind, and how. Let's fuck up some nature, guys. Let's change the world.

    (More photos, diagrams and details here.)
  2.  (5646.2)
    Sure it looks fine, but just wait until the damn sandworms appear...

    On a more serious note? Very interesting. I'm wondering how local life would adapt to it.
  3.  (5646.3)
    Well, the Chinese managed to build a 6,000+ miles of wall 2500 years ago. Of course it took them a few hundred years, but still…
  4.  (5646.4)
    The the expected effects themselves are pretty risky, but my biggest concern is that I'm sure they are considering the desert just a big pile of sand and I'm sure thesesand-solidifying bacteria aren't going to behave as predicted..
    • CommentAuthorVermilious
    • CommentTimeApr 20th 2009
     (5646.5)
    why would they stop at the edge of the 'wall'? I'm fairly sure that if you put bacteria somewhere, they spread out in all directions. Which means that we'll just end up with a solid Sahara. Unless the bacteria aren't well adapted to the climate.

    Actually, that might be the key to making this project work exactly-you need to make sure the desert kills any of the bacteria that get left behind in the sand during the initial pass through-or we've definitely ice-9-ed the Sahara

    But cool. Can we make them into houses instead, and build a new megacity around the edge of the desert?
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      CommentAuthorAdam
    • CommentTimeApr 21st 2009
     (5646.6)
    Sounds like Bene Gesserit trickery to me! }:(
  7.  (5646.7)
    That's just nifty.
  8.  (5646.8)
    @Sage
    looking at the blog linked in the OP I'd think that the bacteria won't survive too well in a desert environment, presumably solving the ice-9 issue.
    Larsson has proposed using bacillus pasteurii, a "microorganism, readily available in marshes and wetlands

    Whether they will just go dormant only to suddenly take over the whole desert come next rainfall though.

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