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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."
Scientists develop $5 artificial diamonds and scientists develop economically produced artificial silk; I'd say its been a pretty good time for those who had kept their hopes up for alchemy after the 18th century turned out unfruitful... How long until workers in industries "ruined" by scientific development (though only ever valued for the rareness of their product) develop a cult-like anti-scientific religion and take over the world?
Well, I've read the article. I've read Scientific American's version. I've read a few other ones google referenced. And I still haven't a fucking clue why silk is so strong.
Am I getting dumber, or are these science article getting more opaque?
"becuase of proteins with various properties" me arse.
This brings up an interesting question. Does anyone know what the difference is in properties between the silkworm's silk and the spider's silk?
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
As advanced as we think we are, it takes the discovery of how to do what seems like the mundane of how to make diamonds and silk to realize that we have such a long way to go.
We still can't store electricity efficiently.
This is my sig.
You don't suppose this stuff could be strong enough to make a space elevator, could it?
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
AFAIK, there have been several attempts to farm spiders, actually. Sure, spiders are creepy and potentially dangerous, but that's not why the attempts failed. (Having once been caught in the middle of an honest-to-God cattle stampede, I can tell you that a bunch of cows are scarier than a bunch of spiders any day of the week -- which, obviously, doesn't keep us from raising the critters.) The problem is that spiders are just stubborn; they spin webs pretty much only when they feel like it. Silkworms, OTOH, will turn out silk all day if you keep them fed.
Again, this is all AFAIK, based on stuff I heard a long time ago.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
"the spiders can't be farmed (when you put them too close together, they eat each other)."
:)
hey, not so fast.
check out this cbc article and click through to the photo gallery to get really creeped out.
that's one whole lotta silk. i'd still like to know who/what they ate to do that. and i'd really, really like to know what biochem outfit owns land nearby.
I understand from the article that they've figured out how strong silk is actually produced, which should give them a heads-up on making a mechanical/chemical process to do all this artificially. It should be pointed out, though, that there are already means for production of non-artificial spider silk currently, which the article seems to have missed.
~ Leilah
Besides which, Black Widows arn't as danagerous as most people think. Sure, they can kill a small child or an old person. But the most a black widow bite will do to a fit person is make them feel cramps, cold sweats, and nausia. You should still see a doctor, but it's unlikely that you are in any danger. There has not been a fatal Black Widow bite in the USA for over 10 years.
The brown recluse, on the other hand, is a pretty nasty North American spider. I still have scars on my leg from a bite. It is NOT fun having your flesh dissolve, believe me!
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
They aren't really "domesticated", just captured in the wild and kept in a container, such as a terrarium. A couple of crickets a week keeps them fed. There is one spider farm locally, collecting venom for research and anti-venin production. They use plastic refrigerator containers, and have well-sealed buildings. They have a small group of collectors - instead of raising the spiders, they buy mature females as needed.
I have an old microscope repair manual that explained how one gets the silk from the spider ... if I recall you put the spider in a rather large container, with a tiny shelter at the top. They will run a long strand from the shelter down to the bottom of the container and make their messy trap web there, of sticky strands. You harvest the long strand on a loop of wire and then lay the strand onto the glass reticule, usin gan alignment jig. It's sticky enough to cling to the glass.
I can't remember what the name of the Heinlein novel but the novel or short story talked extensively about construction on an asteroid and how some of the work wouldn't be possible without synthetic spider webbing. Looks like Heinlein was ahead of his times again.
This guy is way out there
>The modern atheistic regimes have killed more
>people than all of the "religious" wars in
>history.
Since there were far more people on the earth during "modern" history than there were in the past, this is hardly a relevant point. As a percentage of population killed, they've certainly done no better (or worse) than their religious predecessors. And of course, many of the victims of religion were killed not in wars, but by the zealots in their own nations. From the Spanish Inquisition to the Salem witch trials, religion has been effective at persecuting or slaughtering the innocent within a society, quite apart from any wars between religions or sects.
One could also argue that Soviet-style Communism is as much a religion as Christianity, which sort of negates the argument that these "atheistic" regimes are free from "religion." Replacing one fucked-up, reality-denying philosophy (say, Christianity as it's been practiced traditionally) with another (say, Communism) isn't likely to lead to an improvement in anybody's quality of life.
What really strikes me as odd (or maybe as typical) in your mode of discussion is the total lack of space for any hint of morality in those that choose not to believe in God. Your consistent grouping of morality on the side of theism, and the subsequent imposibility of a morality outside the context of a God is simplistic, to say the least.
I do not believe in a God that leads my day to day life, or even cares about it. I do not believe in a God that loves us as individuals. I do not believe in a God that sat down one day and created heaven and earth for our benefit.
And when I stop looking at spirituality, I look around me and see organised religion outdoing organised crime in profit margins, ruthlessnes and control. I look at organised religion and see nothing but nepotism, and little evidence of this assumed morality. I see massive coverup of child abuse. I see lives destroyed in the name of the pope. I see people going hungry, without help from the churches, that can seriously afford it. I see a pope, buying a million dollar Bentley, so he can drive around in safety, while his followers slaughter each other for ridiculous reasons. I see an organised fostering of hate, a repressive regime, that actively discourages discovery of the world around us, an inward-looking philosophy, that frowns on exploration. I see a cult. A cult more concerned with control then with anything else.
Irrespective of my lack of beliefs in a traditional sense, I live my life, and teach my son to live his, along a moral code that requires no deity to enforce: Be nice to others. At the end of the day, that is what it is all about.
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Redfield Gunsight used to have a whole area in their factory of black-widown spiders. They farmed them and valued them very much. If a spider was missing, they would issue an alert to locate the spider and return it to its home.
The web from the black-widow spider was used to make the cross-hairs in their scopes. During the prime of their business, Redfield scopes were some of the very best ever made. All thanks to the silk from the black-widow spider farm.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
nope, doping the diamonds won't work. It's not the presence of impure minerals in the diamond or lack thereof that make them distinguishable. Your local jewler will NEVER be able to tell the difference looking at this throuh any sort of magnification from a natural flawless diamond.
It's the actual structure of the diamond on a molecular level that is too perfect. DeBeers themselves with their absolute mod sophisticated equiptment SUSPECT they will be able to identify them... but there is nothing in existing grading labs that can, and your local jeweler certainly cannot.
But this mute and actually supports what your saying. The diamond market has been artificially kept afloat to this point. Contrary to popular belief diamonds are NOT rare, and I mean the natural ones. DeBeers simply controls the market by making sure all diamonds funnel through them and releasing them very slowly.
In short this is an industry that exists in it's present form with inflated prices only because of a fraud. It's about damn time someone shut them down. Real jewelers have plenty of other items of jewelry they can sell, and there is nothing to stop them from selling diamonds, just not for thousands of dollars. Your corner jeweler won't go out of business because of this, but debeers will and it's about time they do.
I have to agree.
There is already a material being produced which is superior to spiders' silk in every way -- stronger, lighter, higher elongation-to-break, and easier to mass produce. It is called ultra-high molecular weight high-density polyethylene. Spectra is one form of the stuff; Dyneema is a superior form.
UM-HDPE is basically the same stuff that garbage bags are made of ("ordinary" HDPE), but the polyethylene chains in it are several tens of thousands of times longer. This was made possible by the discovery of a new process by which to build the PE chains, using a new catalyst (and lots and lots of MAO, which always cracks me up).
UM-HDPE production has been ramping up slowly over the past several years. In time, we should expect it to be fairly commonplace and inexpensive (Dyneema is currently extremely pricey stuff, due to limited production). So cracking the silk "code" is nothing to get riled up about, at least not from a material engineer's perspective. It's a johnny-come-latey. I seriously doubt its production could be ramped up any faster than Dyneema's, and Dyneema has a huge head start.
-- TTK