Partition, Heal Thyself

Sometimes, reality truly is stranger than science fiction. Take the work of Nancy Sottos, for example. She's an engineer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and she is well on her way to making a plastic that can repair a split, cut, tear, or rupture in itself ~ by itself: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121024-bleeding-plastic-repairs-itself