The cities of the future could be built by microbes

Illustration of pressure sensing bacteria in soils from the ‘Computational Colloids Project’. Carolina Ramirez-Figuroa, Luis Hernan and Martyn Dade-Robertson, [[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ CC BY-SA]]</span>You might be disappointed to hear that some intriguing underwater structures recently discovered off the Greek island of Zakynthos are not part of the lost city of Atlantis. But the structures, which resemble colonnades of cobble stones and bases of columns, have an equally fascinating origin. They were actually constructed by microbes gathering around natural vents of methane and forming a natural cement in the otherwise soft sediment.