Jeff Brinker makes microscopic structures that play off the tendencu of molecules to repel or attract water. A coating inspired by the Namib Desert Beetle is so hydrophobic that water bounces off it like a ball. Sandia and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) had the zany idea of using honeybees to stand in for humans when collecting traces of bioweapons and explosives. Brinker stepped in and had the idea of extracting living cells from genetically modified organisms and grafting them onto the backs of cockroaches controlled by pheromones. The cells would be reengineered to fluoresce in the presence of bioweapons and bombs. The cockroach part was doable, but keeping cells alive outside of a host was something no one had succeeded at for too long. But Brinker kept on pursuing the idea of preserving living cells outside their host, and the Air Force threw in $500,000 for research. This year he showed how, by injecting the cells into a matrix made from silica nanotubes wrapped in a sol-gel, he was able to keep a cell alive for six months. These same silica nanostructures with other cell recipes inside them could be used to detect cancer.