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The ability for materials to self-heal or grow new material to replace damaged material is an easy task for Nature, but not so common in engineering. Current approaches implement crystal-producing bacteria within concrete materials. In this issue of Matter, Srubar and colleagues explore the use of a photosynthetic cyanobacterium embedded in a sand-hydrogel scaffold to produce a promising concrete-alternative.

Many biological materials display resilience rivaling engineered systems, but few have mechanisms that integrate failure with function. A new work by Espinosa et al. probes the peculiar behavior of the sea urchin’s teeth, which demonstrate utility beyond strength and toughness.