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Nanoscale Optical Fiber From Spider Silk

Posted by timothy on from the where-are-those-goats dept.

Makarand writes "Engineers may soon be able to make the finest optical fibers with some help from spiders. To make optical fibers narrower for nanoscale applications, researchers coated spider silk fibers with glassy material which was later removed by baking. The spider Stegodyphus pacificus, a native of the Middle East and South Asia, spins the thinnest known silk which promises to yield optical fibers with a diameter of around two nanometres!"

1 of 27 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Grr... by nebbian · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Yeah, it's not like the english invented the language you use or anything ;-)

    Oh hang on, are you complaining that you're not used to the standard way of spelling 'metre' (ie. you think it should be spelled 'meter' which to everyone else means a little dial that displays some information) or are you not used to the standard metric system itself?

    OK, here goes:

    NOTE FOR ALL USA CITIZENS: Replace all instances of the word "nanometre" with "1/25188917" inches. There! Much easier to read!

    Friggin foreigners.

    --
    I am artificially intelligent.