Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Crack Silk's Secret
AEton writes "Researchers at Tufts University have reportedly discovered the mechanism by which spidersilk is produced. Besides the obvious use as a Kevlar substitute in bulletproof vests, silk has applications in microprocessor production, nanoscale optical fiber, a and any other application requiring strength and flexbility. Scientists have long grappled with the issue of creating silk; artificial silk is inferior to the real stuff, and the spiders can't be farmed (when you put them too close together, they eat each other). The method these Tufts researchers have found makes "strong silk" production feasible; if they can make it economical, the impact on safety equipment alone makes this material a worthwhile investment."
Perhaps the part about changing materials that are next to worthless into something valuable is what you mean by alchemy, but none of this is anything like alchemy. Atoms are not being transformed into the "diamond atom" from the carbon atom, it is still carbon, just in a different form.
Obviously, the diamond industry has reason to worry if the fakes are indistinguishable, but I'm not sure what you're talking about a "cult-like anti-scientific religion," that is just silly.
There is nothing wrong with economical silk- after all, how big is the industry, and are the people in it that well off right now? Silk is something with actual applications (diamonds do as well, but not as many). Science marches on and puts people out of work, but at the end of the day, they find another line of work and everyone is better off. The standard of living in the developed world has steadily increased- and most of it is because of science.
Spare me of the doomsday theories.
Well, strong but flexable silk gives the spiders that spin it a pretty good reproductive advantage over those that don't. Over time, natural selection will favor those spiders with strong but thin (and, as such, difficult to see) webs. It's not too suprising that scientists are no match for millions of years of evolution.
There isn't currently a spider-silk industry. There's a silk industry, but from what I understand the whole point of spider silk as opposed to silkworm silk (which is at least relatively easily harvested), is that spiders have stronger silk with many more applications. So realistically, what we have here is not one industry "ruining" another, it's an entirely new industry that's being added. It's not like the spiders are going to get upset about us taking over their industry.
On the topic of displaced workers though - there's always going to be a demand for "the real thing". While artificially produced diamonds may be exactly the same as naturally formed ones, for many people they are two entirely different things. It's all a question of perception. As long as people view the two things differently, there will always be a market for the rarer and consequently more expensive natural diamonds.
~ Leilah
I am really disturbed by the tendency of people to proclaim "scientists are no match for millions of years of evolution" after scientists understand (somewhat) another mystery. Look, this achievement is the first step after a long preparatory work. Now for the first time scientists really understand what is going on. Yes, they still don't know some aspects of the process, but they are just getting started. The area of bionics is booming. Just recently we could read in the news that engineers are building submarines that swim without propellers - by moving the "tail" instead. Yes, their crude attempts are no match for a dolphin, but give them time. We have supersonic aicrafts, we have spaceships, we can dig more than 10km deep into the Earth, we can move from the ocean surface into the Mariana trench in the same craft, we can build moving objects weighting million tons! Can the nature do that? Did the evolution do that? The answer is a resounding no!
So wait a few years (at most a decade) and artificial spider silk will be stronger than natural. After a decade more we will have not only stronger, but ligher, more flexible, cheaper and overall better threads than any spider will ever have. Evolution is too slow and we gave it a huge start - billions of years. And we are gaining on it now.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
And, given the time that life has had to develop, it is far from amazing that "natural" materials can be strong. Life is a bit like an arms race that has been going on for over a billion years. The development of advanced materials by human beings using brainpower and technology is just an extension of the normal mechanisms of evolution.
Wood (for instance) is chemically and structurally similar to many advanced composite plastics, and the strongest woods are as strong as structural plastics. It just shows that there is a clever way of making strong, resilient materials and that you can do this by natural selection of biochemistry or you can do it by technology. It's interesting, but not amazing.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.