A little while ago I was working at an information table for sustainability and so I had to gather information about the cool research we do here on campus. I asked a whole lot of uOttawa professors about their research regarding sustainable development, and I thought that the coolest out of all of them was that of Professor Robert Delatolla’s. What is so incredibly neat about Professor Delatolla’s research is that he uses miniature spaceships. Sold yet? These honeycomb pasta like plastic thingies are mini-houses for bacteria that clean waste water. MBBRs (Moving Bed Biofilm Reactors – BUT FEAR NOT: you won’t need to remember this) are little bits of plastic that are designed to allow bacteria to grow in a community called a biofilm. These biofilms, or bacterial communities, filter the sludge in water by removing ammonia and nitrates. There are a couple of reasons why I think this particular project is brilliant. We are using what bacteria use against us against them – muahah...