This interview originally aired on "In the Moment" on SDPB Radio.
Cracked and crumbling soil can endanger the infrastructure built over it, including roads and bridges. Could a solution to fix these problematic soils be in your mouth?
We learn why Aritra Banerjee, Ph.D., at South Dakota State University is exploring adding bacteria from dental plaque to soil to strengthen it.
Dental plaque is a quick-hardening substance that binds like concrete to your teeth. Banerjee is experimenting to find strains of bacteria that would bind to soil molecules in a similar way.
Plus, we learn where he gets the plaque bacteria for the study.
