Ever thought about what superpower you’d have if you could choose one?
I’d always considered teleportation to be the obvious answer. But then I had a student who said his superpower would be the ability to produce cheese from his finger. How brilliant! Batman would cower in his Spandex.
Cheese is probably the most delicious food type there is. But it’s even more extraordinary than that. Turns out that it can consume spills and bacteria, leaving a surface cleaner than if Martha Stewart had gone at it with a toothbrush and bleach.
Remember the blob? It’s kind of like that. Except cheese comes from someone’s finger, not from outer space. And hopefully, it won’t eat diners (the people or the restaurants).
Scientists at the Institute of Technology in Zurich took a sample of delicious penicillium roqueforti and sandwiched it between PVC and a thin, porous polymer film. They then dropped a sugary potato broth onto the top layer of film. In two weeks, the cheese fungus had totally consumed the broth, leaving the top film completely clean. The fungus then entered a state of dormancy, in which it stayed until scientists spilled more broth onto the top layer.
They got the idea from the tough rind on cheeses such as Camembert, which fights off bacteria and helps the creamy insides to mature deliciously.
The fungus isn’t just tough on the outside. It continued absorbing the broth even after scientists doused it with soap and an alcohol-based disinfectant, which could eventually revolutionize sanitation techniques at places like hospitals.
Combining a living organism and a flat surface is a relatively new idea with myriad intriguing implications. Eventually, such a combination could produce a self-sustaining and self-sterilizing surface. If, for example, a substance such as mold was placed on (or already existed on) a flat surface, the fungus could live on the mold and take care of the problem.
I think the Aqua Teen Hunger Force tried an experiment similar to this one.
So a cheese-producing superhero would be even more powerful and awesome than I originally thought. I just hope he’s ready to take his fungus to Antarctica if it starts eating his finger.
Congratulations and thanks!