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#1 2016-02-26 23:55:22

RobertDyck
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From: Winnipeg, Canada
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Grown house

TED talk: Don't build your home, grow it! (only 2 minutes, 49 seconds)
fab-tree-hab-living-house-joachim-1a.jpg

This is an interesting idea. I read about a story, many years ago, about a genetically engineered tree. This tree would grow to become a house. So you don't build your house, you grow it. I haven't found the original story, but it's an intriguing idea. This guy has proposed a modification of the idea. He claims we don't need to genetically engineer at tree, we can use "pleaching", grafting trees together. He then wants to add the latest buzz-word in construction: "use CNC (Computer Numerical Control) to train plants into a specific geometry." That means similar technology as 3D-printing, but in this case to move, weave, and trim trees.

axel-erlandson_s-circus-trees-3.jpg 4ea1faf4af3440dc632c0ae3bcc9e691.jpg

In his TED talk, he then goes on to talk about "in-vitro meat habitat". He describes using cell culture to grow meat tissue, so no animal is harmed. This would use "fatty cells as insulation, cilia for dealing with wind loads and sphincter muscles for the doors and windows."
Cross-section.jpg
Well...ridiculous as that sounds, it is an idea.

Many years ago, before this guy came up with a talk, the story made me think. What if we genetically engineer a house. Use all plant matter, not meat. Grow a tree for the shell of the house, with something like coconut husk fibre for wall insulation. Many plants produce fibrous insulation, it doesn't have to be coconut. Engineer it to grow chambers in the trunk as rooms. Grow hardwood floor, the trick is to get it to grow flat. Bioluminescent ceiling lights, fed by the trees. Toilet grown with living wood, and hard "skin" of something like mollusc shell (mother of pearl). Or for plant tissue, the hard smooth shell of a filbert nut aka hazelnut. The toilet would empty into an underground septic tank, with tree roots in the septic tank. So every time you go to the bathroom, you feed your house. Trees in a rain forest often have leaves that collect rain, and direct rain water into storage pockets. How about large, firm leaves that direct rain to a water tank above the house. That tank would provide drinking water for the owners. The tree could collect its own water from soil with roots. Or perhaps an overflow from the water storage tank into another tank with roots for the tree to drink. The tree could repair minor damage itself by growing. The tree would have leaves to collect sunlight, so it would power itself. This tree would have to control temperature, so generate heat in winter. There are various biological ways to do it.

::Edit:: The family of rainforest plants that collect water are called bromeliad. Some grow on trees, rather than rainforest trees themselves. Click the image for a kids activity; that webpage says the largest bromeliads hold up to 2 gallons of water.
bromeliad.gif

The tree could provide some food; maples trees have sugar in their sap. In spring, when sap starts to flow, a tap is nailed into a tree trunk. As temperature rises, sap flows up. As temperature gets cold again, sap flows down into the roots. This is why its done in spring, as snow is melting. The result is thin, watery liquid with sugar. That is boiled down to concentrate non-water. The result is maple syrup. Cold an engineered tree provide maple syrup on tap in the kitchen? And I'm sure a tree could grow fruit and/or nuts. Not all your food, but it would help.

So what about windows? You want a transparent material that insulates vs cold. Here in Canada, we used double pane windows when I was a kid. Modern houses are triple pane or more. Often two panes of glass with 1 to 3 sheets of plastic film between. How could that be grown? Cornea and of our eyes is transparent. But that's animal tissue. The first windows were flattened animal horn, but again that's animal tissue. Is there transparent plant tissue?

Differentiation in Plants

Epidermal cells are the most common cell type in the epidermis. These cells are often called "pavement cells" because they are flat polygonal cells that form a continuous layer, with no spaces between individual cells. Epidermal cells secrete the waxy hydrophobic substance cutin that polymerizes on the surface, forming a barrier to water evaporation. Epidermal cells are transparent because their plastids remain small and undifferentiated; hence light readily penetrates through to the photosynthetic tissues beneath the epidermis.

Ok, so the epidermis of leaves is transparent. Could a plant grow this material as windows? Would plant veins produce a "multi-light" window with multiple small panes?

Doors would have to seal air tight. Any house with temperature control does. Could a tree grow that? Perhaps growing the door and frame as a single piece, then tissue between going through programmed cell death to separate the door from frame. That would form a perfect fit. A lot of plants have soft tissue, so weather stripping shouldn't be difficult.

In the original Mars Society forum, before New Mars, one author said she wanted ideas for a new book. I suggested science fiction or fantasy. She could make an elf-like story, with such a grown house as a focus of the story. Young parents would plant an acorn (or tree seed) when a child is born. The tree would grow with the child. It would be the size of a tree-house or "fort" when the child was young, grow as the child grows. It would be a small, single bedroom house when the child was old enough to move out on his/her own. The tree could respond to CO2 inside the house and, um, manure left in the toilet. If a spouse moves into the house, it would grow larger. The tree would be engineered to respond to human hormones, so if a pregnant woman lives in the house, those hormones would trigger the house to grow a new room, a nursery. And the tree would produce seed as soon as the child is born. The nursery would grow to a bedroom as the baby grows to a child.

There could be different varieties for different climates. Northern climates such as Canada could grow evergreen trees, that grow needs to collect sunlight in winter. Important if you expect your house to heat itself. Cypress or mangrove for Florida?

The image from the TED talk shows an open weave. In cold climates you want an air tight house to keep heat in.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2016-02-27 12:10:39)

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#2 2016-02-28 01:11:49

RobertDyck
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Re: Grown house

I suggested a genetically engineered tree. The whole point is to eliminate industrial effort needed to build a house. Doing this with tree training requires a great deal of effort, either manual trimming and grafting and weaving, or the TED talk suggested some sort of automated mechanism. However, how close could we get with existing plants?

As the TED talk stated, we can use "pleaching" to create the shell. Examples show an open weave, we would need something that forms a wall. Could parallel saplings be grafted along their entire length? Instead of crossing as shown, straight trunks that are thin but graved on either side to form a wall just a few inches thick, but the width of a house?

Then for insulation, instead of coconut fibre for insulation, we could use ball moss. That isn't actually parasitic. The article says it produces pseudo-roots to anchor into bark, but gets nutrition directly from air. That includes moisture, CO2, and nitrogen. And it prefers shade, growing on inside branches of trees. It must require some sunlight, if it isn't a parasite. We could use cotton for insulation, but ball moss can grow on "pleached" trees.
ball_moss_1.jpg?resize=261%2C270

::Edit:: Instead of ball moss, we could use Spanish moss. Wikipedia says Spanish moss has been used as building insulation. So why not grow it within the wall cavity of a building, as insulation?
220px-Spanish_moss_at_the_Mcbryde_Garden_in_hawaii.jpg

And instead of water collection similar to a bromeliad, plant real bromeliads. They will collect rainwater. A tube could drain water above a certain level to a holding tank on the roof. Bromeliad require some water for their own growth, but an "over flow" tube can collect excess water.

Floor could be interesting. A genetically engineered tree should grow its own floor. How to make it flat and level? Some kind of liquid system through plant veins in a growing floor, designed to be sensitive to gravity? A floor must be strong, able to withstand the weight of people and furniture. That means woody. Could a non-pressurized non-capillary fluid system control growth, and exist within a strong, hard floor? But a constructed tree-house would require a conventional floor.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2016-02-28 07:12:55)

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#3 2020-02-27 21:34:21

RobertDyck
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Re: Grown house

I posted this 4 years ago, but think about it now and again. Posted about this on the original Mars Society forum in 1999. Here's a new thing...
Plants That Heat Themselves
sauromgutt.jpg

There are a few plants in nature, like the remarkable Voodoo Lily (Sauromatum guttatum), that produce extraordinary heat when they flower. What actually warms up when the plant flowers is part of the inflorescence, called a spadix.

Typically, the plants do this to attract insect pollinators. But some, such as the Eastern skunk cabbage may actually use this mechanism against the cold.

In the case of the Voodoo Lily, flies are lured by chemical attractants, which are volatilized by the heat of the spadix. (The chemicals smell to us like putrid, rotting meat.)

The process of heat production by living organisms is called thermogenesis. And though it’s far from common in the plant kingdom, thermogenic plants occur in several plant families, especially the Araceae. Members of this plant family include the Eastern skunk cabbage and the giant carrion flower.

Much fewer plants, however, are able to thermoregulate, that is, they actually regulate the temperature of thermogenesis within narrow limits. A nice PDF slideshow of plant thermoregulation can be found HERE (thanks to the Mechanical Engineering department at UC Berkeley).

How Do Plants Generate Heat?

Much about what we know about how the Voodoo Lily spadix, for example, generates heat came from the research of Professor Bastiaan J. D. Meeuse.

Among his discoveries about heat production in plants, Dr. Meeuse and co-workers showed that a compound related to aspirin triggers pronounced heat production in the flowers and inflorescences of some thermogenic plants.

Briefly, heat generation in these plants is due to the massive activation of the alternative oxidase metabolic pathway in the mitochondria inside the plant cells.

Simply put, when this happens, instead of generating ATP as result of metabolizing sugars via oxidative phosphorylation, the mitochondria generate heat.

Bottom line: Though some plants can generate heat to promote flower pollination, it’s unlikely that they do so just to survive cold temperatures.

References

1. Meeuse B.J.D. (1966) The Voodoo Lily. Scientific American vol. 218, pp. 80-88.

2. Meeuse, B.J.D. (1975) Thermogenic Respiration in Aroids. Ann. Rev. Plant Physiology vol. 26, pp. 117-126. (Abstract)

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#4 2020-02-27 22:28:39

RobertDyck
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Re: Grown house

This raises a question about technology. For those who want something completely different.

When a baby is born, parents plant a seed. When the child is young and running about, the tree grows to a treehouse. As the child grows, so does the tree. Spending more time in the treehouse, triggers it to grow a washroom. The toilet empties into a septic tank underground, in the root ball. When a person uses the toilet, he/she literally feeds the tree. The tree grows a water tank above the living space; filled with clean pure water, harvested by tree roots and purified by the metabolism of the tree. Lightly pressurized to provide household running water. At this point the washroom is just a toilet and sink. When the child grows to a young adult, he/she moves into this tree. This greater presence triggers the tree to grow a bathtub in the washroom, and a kitchen. When a spouse moves in, the presence of a second person living there triggers a treehouse to grow a bedroom. When the woman gets pregnant, hormones in her urine deposited in the toilet triggers the treehouse to grow a nursery. As hormones in urine grow, that causes the nursery to grow as well. Shortly before the baby is scheduled to be born, based on hormones, the nursery is finished, completely with a crib. Growing over that crib, a single tree seed. From the tree's perspective, "we" are having a baby.

As the child grows, the nursery grows to a child's bedroom. Each new baby triggers a new nursery. When a child leaves (eg grown) the child's bedroom remains the same size. The family could reuse the room for something else. Closing the door and never opening it would cause the tree to slowly re-absorb that appendage. If a pregnant woman triggers a new nursery when the tree is re-absorbing a room, that room will be recycled, grow into a new nursery.

Different trees genetically engineered for different environments. Mangrove for Florida? Acacia for an arid region? Sequoia for the pacific coast? I live in Canada where we have winter; the tree would have to be evergreen, and have to provide serious heat in winter.

The tree could add some interesting details. Toilet with a built-in bidet, so you don't need toilet paper? That helps compost what's put down the toilet, and since that feeds the tree, what you flush can't be toxic. Dispenser of liquid soap over the sink, with soap produced by the tree itself? Another in over the bathtub, and shampoo dispenser? Dish soap dispenser over the kitchen sink? The tree may even grow some fresh fruit in the kitchen. Not a lot of food, but some.

Windows grown of transparent plant material. Cornea of human eyes is modified skin. Cornea has no blood vessels, no hair, no pours, no pigment. Cornea is fed by nutrients in tears, washed over the eye every time you blink. Obviously tears gain oxygen directly from air, but tears also have an anti-bacteria to ensure you're eyes don't get infected. Fluid circulates behind the cornea, also feeding cornea tissue. Treehouse windows could be made of transparent plant material, also no pigment, but with plant veins carrying sap to feed the windows. This means damage to windows will heal themselves.
013DBA2F-FEBB-470C-B72F52104DFA0AF6_source.jpg?w=590&h=800&7D2257FE-A85E-4430-A962E679A5623B5F

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#5 2020-02-28 05:49:02

tahanson43206
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Re: Grown house

For RobertDyck ... Congratulations on this promising topic.  An author who has explored this theme is "East" something.  I'll try to find the full name ... it might have been Easton ... Tom Easton? 

Google: tom easton author

From www.sf-encyclopedia.com

The sf novels in the Sparrowhawk: Organic Destiny sequence – Sparrowhawk (1990), Greenhouse (1991), Woodsman (1992), Tower of the Gods (1993) and Seeds of Destiny (1994) – focus on an Earth rather mechanically dominated by a biological revolution, with genimals – genetically engineered animals – replacing cars and indeed almost anything imaginable; by the fifth volume, the bioengineering Gypsies have been driven into space by the Engineers, who are machine-oriented, and a conflict between the two principles – it is one common to late twentieth-century sf – begins to wage throughout the galaxy.

(th)

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#6 2020-02-28 08:15:43

Calliban
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Re: Grown house

I like the idea of a grown house.  It would probably be a healthier way to live.  A human settlement on that model has the benefit of integrating into an ecosystem, rather than displacing it.  But growing a tree of sufficient size would take a lot of time – as in centuries of time.  We could create living space within the trunk of a large tree (an oak tree perhaps?) by gradually inflating a void within the trunk that would get larger as the mass of the trunk grew larger.  Not sure how that would work in practice.  Eventually, as the tree reached maturity, it would have an ellipsoid void within its trunk that could be inhabited.  There are variations on the theme that might be easier to develop.

Forest living.  Close to where I live, there is a large evergreen wood.  The floor remains dry for most of the year, as the trees remove so much water from the ground.  I bet that an adobe structure built on the forest floor would have fewer problems with damp.  One could build a structure around the trunk an established tree.  The trees also help to moderate temperature, as they provide shade and transpiration in the summer and their metabolism releases heat in the winter.  The trees also act as a wind break.  So there is something to be said for building a settlement within a manmade forest.  Plenty of trees fall as a result of wind and rot, which would pose a hazard if the forest were permanently inhabited.

Densely populated habitations, made from natural materials, constructed in forest clearings.  We could use a mixture of natural materials; cob or adobe for walls, wood for floor joists and straw for roofing material.  Maybe tree houses or hanging structures from large trees.  All of these ideas are vulnerable to fire and have space limitations, but it is an aesthetically pleasing way to live.

The most practical suggestion I have seen for creating pressurised living space on Mars, is the use of ETFE sheets, which are periodically anchored to the ground by steel or basalt fibre cables.  Beneath this canopy, the original landscape would remain and could presumably be planted.  The interesting thing is that we have control over precipitation and temperature beneath the ETFE canopy and there is no wind loading to consider for structures built beneath it.  This makes it possible to consider living arrangements beneath the canopy that would uncomfortable or unworkable on Earth.

Last edited by Calliban (2020-02-28 08:17:45)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#7 2020-02-28 09:44:25

RobertDyck
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Re: Grown house

Calliban wrote:

But growing a tree of sufficient size would take a lot of time – as in centuries of time.

That's why the original post suggested pleaching. Currently that takes a lot of work; it involved growing a number of fast-growing trees that produce tall thin trunks or branches, and bending them to braid together. Where two branches cross, they're slashed to expose live wood, removing bark. This causes the two branches to grow together; basically grafting to each other.

So rather than grow a giant sequoia or something similar, and trying to use a balloon to open a space inside, instead use pleaching to grow walls from branches. For northern climates such as where I live, the wall would have 2 layers, inner and outer. Between the two layers, multiple branches forming cross members, creating a 3D truss. The gap between inner and outer wall would be filled with fibre, forming insulation. That's what post #2 was about. Do we base the insulation on cotton, coconut fibre, or moss (ball or Spanish)?

But to be effective, the tree has to do this on its own. Not constant work.

The floor would be genetically engineered to grow a with a spongy layer filled with water (actually thin sap). Most trees carry water in lightly pressurized veins; but the floor would have a spongy layer with no pressure. Engineer it so the thin sap forms a flat level layer, using the water a level. The top layer would be a hard floor, a specific distance above the sap-filled spongy layer. With the floor growing out to the pleach branches that form walls.

Using pleaching, the tree could grow fast. But "fast" means several years, not centuries. From seed to treehouse, 6 years? Then continue to grow in the manner described. A mature tree would have to grow a nursery in 9 months.

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#8 2020-02-28 10:41:34

RobertDyck
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Re: Grown house

Some optimization. Most plants are what biology calls C3 plants. Meaning the first step of photosynthesis is a chemical with 3 carbon atoms. But plants have a problem: there's not enough CO2 in Earth's atmosphere today. Plants are starved of CO2. That first chemical is supposed to bind CO2, but when the ratio of O2 to CO2 is too high, it binds O2 instead. That turns the C3 chemical into waste that has to be recycled back to C3, and that takes energy. Many weeds are something called C4. This means the plant combines CO2 into a chemical that has 4 carbon atoms, transports this C4 chemical to the site where photosynthesis happens, and breaks it back into CO2. This concentrates CO2, which reduces photorespiration. Concentrating CO2 this way takes energy, but it saves more energy by reducing photorespiration. Corn is a C4 plant, which is why it grows faster than most other food crops.

I suggest the ceiling of every room of the treehouse will be lined with stomata. That's the pore that normally is on the bottom of leaves. It will take in CO2 that people exhale, convert it to the C4 chemical. In nature, the C4 process occurs in leaves, so the whole thing is contained in leaves. But I suggest this engineered treehouse make use of exhaled breath. Taking in CO2 and converting to C4, then use the tree's veins to transport that chemical to leaves. So this tree will grow faster because it has the C4 process of weeds, and further has the advantage of concentrated CO2 from people who live within.

Legumes are a family of plant including beans, peas, lentils, alfalfa, etc. All legumes can host a species of bacteria in its roots. If the seed is "inoculated" with spores of the bacteria, it grows nodules in its roots willed with this bacteria. The bacteria feed on water and carbohydrate from the plant. In return, the bacteria fix nitrogen from air, creating nitrate. This provides the plant with plenty of nitrate fertilizer. Nitrogen is needed to grow protein; this is why legumes have more protein than most other foods. We could engineer the tree to do this too. Providing the tree with plenty of nitrate for fast growth.

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#9 2020-02-28 15:15:48

louis
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Re: Grown house

I've previously suggested the use of thermogenic plants (plants that release heat at night) in Mars greenhouses as a way of balancing temperature levels over a sol day-night cycle. I don't think anyone has had the motivation to select for thermogenic characteristics on Earth as yet or to reduce the smell factor (many of these thermogenic plants are pretty noxious-smelling).

As regards "growing houses" I have seen in the "flesh" so to speak (at the UK's Design Museum) furniture  grown from fungi (not very aesthetically pleasing as yet but functional). Some people have suggested that we could grow buildings from fungi as well. It seems plausible.

Whether living in a living house is more healthy or not, I am not sure. Maybe on Mars where you could grow it in very sterile conditions but out in the open on Earth you are going to get all manner of spores, fungi and pathogens aren't you?, which might be injurious to health. People who work in garden centres are much more susceptible to lung infections than the average citizen.

Last edited by louis (2020-02-28 18:03:50)


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#10 2020-02-28 17:53:24

SpaceNut
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Re: Grown house

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#11 2020-02-28 18:21:19

tahanson43206
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Re: Grown house

For Louis re #9 .... your observation about respiratory health concerns for garden centre workers caught me by surprise.  I've learned to follow up on statements you make that seem surprising, so I was NOT surprised to find a long .... long report on health problems of agricultural workers dating back centuries.

https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10 … rccm1585s1

I bailed out after discovering the article is far longer than I have time for now, but I definitely came to understand that a wide variety of lung illnesses beset farm workers.  Some are caused by human behavior, such as use of pesticides, but many are caused by breathing in airborne particles arising from the practice of agriculture itself.  On multiple occasions in the article, the author(s) made the point that smoking is LESS prevalent in agricultural workers than in the general population.

However, in my scan of the early part of the document, I found nothing to support your assertion about garden centre workers.  Can you (would you) provide a link that explains how ** that ** is possible.  I'm not disputing your assertion.  I'm just struggling to understand how the atmosphere in what we call "garden centers" in the US can be unhealthy.  After all, many of us shop in such facilities at various times of the year.

(th)

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#12 2020-02-28 19:41:18

SpaceNut
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Re: Grown house

Gardens in the open have all the bugs that planted green house soils do not as they are processed for use unlike the open ground that is just turned under to allow for planting to occur. The green house also employ rock wool and hydroponics as well for clean starting of those seeds.
Seeds will not have the issue for many of the diseases as they will be greatly screened to ensure that bugs and bacteria are not present when we bring them to the new garden of eden that they will be in on Mars. With no bugs no pesticides will be needed but we still have other issues for sustaining growth when bees help to pollinate the plants to make new seeds for the future.

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#13 2020-02-28 22:50:15

RobertDyck
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Re: Grown house

I had envisioned this for Earth, not Mars. Breathe air, and water is harvested by tree roots from soil. Can't do that on Mars. Windows formed from transparent leaf tissue without chlorophyll, stomata, or any of the other parts for photosynthesis. Windows would have leaf veins to transport clear sap, to feed the window tissue. But I don't see that strong enough to hold air pressure.

This is a way to live in harmony with nature. Very little income required. You only need appliances, furniture, clothing, and food.

One reason I thought of this again is what's happening in Canada. Our current Prime Minister thought he could balance environment with economy. A campaign slogan in 2015 was the carbon tax would buy "social license" for oil pipelines. But environmental activists think it's all-or-nothing. They won't accept any pipeline. Court cases went to the Supreme Court, the course did order more consultation, which was done. But one oil pipeline is proceeding and one natural gas pipeline. The company building the natural gas pipeline got indigenous communities onboard. Yet activists have blockaded rail lines throughout the country. 85% of community members and the entire elected council of the community in question are in support of the project. Yet some activists are adamant against it. The latest tar sands oil project was cancelled. The federal government wanted to hold it hostage for strict emission limits in Alberta; the courts ruled the federal government cannot dictate to the provincial government. The result, the project is dead. Activists in Quebec want to "transition" Alberta off oil. That means they want to entirely kill the oil industry in Canada. The Liberal government sees their political base as including indigenous people, environment, and Quebec. But these are opposing the compromise they're trying to achieve; opposing all their economic policies. So now who will enforce court injunctions to clear the tracks? Politicians are playing hot-potato with this one. Our country is being shut down. The government can't deal with it.

I would like to give the environmental extremists these grown houses. Let them live like elves; and get out of the way!

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#14 2020-02-28 23:34:28

RobertDyck
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Re: Grown house

I do not believe a living house would be toxic. The hardwood floor could have a truly hard surface, based on the husk of bamboo or rattan. That's a very hard, smooth, sealed surface, impermeable to moisture. Walls would have bark based on beech tree bark; smooth, unblemished. Ceiling would be covered in leaves, to collect CO2 from human breath. The leaves could also collect energy from light within the home. Light would be provided by bioluminescence, with a control to turn it on or off. Heat source from plant thermogenesis would not only heat the house in winter, it could provide point-of-use water heating, so hot and cold running water.

None of this means a toxic environment. Does wood in your home provide toxic anything? Why would you think living wood would be any different? Living wood simply means it heals itself when damaged. And grows. No, you wouldn't have mushrooms or insects living within the home any more than your house has right now.

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#15 2024-03-29 11:45:40

Mars_B4_Moon
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Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,776

Re: Grown house

Tree trimmer rescued when bucket truck malfunctions 30 feet up
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/watch-tree-tr … 54045.html
Firefighters in Florida came to the rescue of a tree trimmer who became stuck in a malfunctioning bucket truck

Gardening bloomed during the pandemic. Garden centers hope would-be green thumbs stay interested
https://wgnradio.com/news/business-news … nterested/

How to Grow Your Own Treehouse
https://inhabitat.com/grow-your-own-treehouse/

like something from a fantasy fiction novel

'Prime Time Treehouse Builders'
https://www.backyardtreehousebuilders.c … -treehouse

How plants reclaimed Chernobyl's poisoned land
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2019 … -radiation

Chernobyl has become a byword for catastrophe. The 1986 nuclear disaster, recently brought back into the public eye by the hugely popular TV show of the same name, caused thousands of cancers, turned a once populous area into a ghost city, and led to an exclusion zone 2,600 sq km (1,000 sq miles) in size.

But Chernobyl’s exclusion zone isn’t devoid of life. Wolves, boars and bears have returned to the lush forests surrounding the old nuclear plant in northern Ukraine. And when it comes to vegetation, all but the most vulnerable and exposed plant life survived. Even in the most radioactive areas of the zone, vegetation was recovering within three years

Plants in the Light of Ionizing Radiation: What Have We Learned From Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Other “Hot” Places?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7227407/

How Plants Survive and Adapt to Radiation
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2022/ph241/newell2/

30+ Medicinal Flowers (& How to Use Them)
https://practicalselfreliance.com/medicinal-flowers/

Keep in mind that while many medicinal flowers are subtle, mild, and relaxing, like chamomile and lavender…some are not so gentle.  Some have incredibly potent medicinal actions and they shouldn’t be used without consulting a doctor or herbalist.  Foxglove is one good example and is listed for informational purposes only.  It can be toxic or harmful if used improperly, and should not be used unless under the guidance of a qualified medical professional.

Medicinal Flowers and Their Uses
https://www.proflowers.com/blog/medicin … s-and-uses

17 Stunning Medicinal Flowers to Grow in Your Garden
https://gardenandhappy.com/17-stunning- … ur-garden/


10 Plants That Clean Contaminated Soil
https://www.backyardboss.net/plants-tha … ated-soil/

Why plants don’t die from cancer
https://theconversation.com/why-plants- … cer-119184

Other types of grown structures

Biomineralization

https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=10552

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2024-03-29 11:47:39)

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#16 2024-03-29 20:03:07

Calliban
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From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,793

Re: Grown house

Mars_B4_Moon wrote:

How plants reclaimed Chernobyl's poisoned land
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2019 … -radiation

Chernobyl has become a byword for catastrophe. The 1986 nuclear disaster, recently brought back into the public eye by the hugely popular TV show of the same name, caused thousands of cancers, turned a once populous area into a ghost city, and led to an exclusion zone 2,600 sq km (1,000 sq miles) in size.

But Chernobyl’s exclusion zone isn’t devoid of life. Wolves, boars and bears have returned to the lush forests surrounding the old nuclear plant in northern Ukraine. And when it comes to vegetation, all but the most vulnerable and exposed plant life survived. Even in the most radioactive areas of the zone, vegetation was recovering within three years

Plants in the Light of Ionizing Radiation: What Have We Learned From Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Other “Hot” Places?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7227407/

How Plants Survive and Adapt to Radiation
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2022/ph241/newell2/

We understand the hazards of radioactivity better now than we did then.  The hazards involved in living in some of the heavily radioactive parts of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, are comparable to the hazards of air pollution in large cities.  Not a good thing by any means.  But not something the government should be forcing people to abandon their homes for.   Whether people living there would experience a measurable decline in life expectancy is debatable.  Life expectancy depends upon a lot of things.


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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