If your cell phone or computer stops working, you can repair a circuit or replace a chip. You know where you can't do that so easily? In space.

As space agencies plan to send humans farther into the great beyond than we've ever gone before, they're hashing out some of the logistical details. Like: what should astronauts do if an electronic device goes haywire? They could bring enough metal to replace whatever breaks, but that would add unnecessary weight to the spacecraft (which means higher costs to launch). So scientists at the Ames Research Center in California are engineering microbes that could break down metallic parts of electronics and then create new ones.