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."
n/t
I hope high gas prices are depriving your children, you fucking dumbass.
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?
fp fp fp fp fp
so i can now finally become spider man?
Does your woman have a big pussy or a small one? Is it related to breast size at all?
however, i'm sure spiderman gave 'em a tip on the secret behind the silk.
You are confusing me with someone who cares.
the spiders can't be farmed (when you put them too close together, they eat each other)
:-(
Why can't everybody be nice to each other ??
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
YOU MUST BE PROUD!!!
I put my hand in my pocket
What do I feel?One hundred and ten stories
Of concrete and steel
Scientists Crack Secret Strength of Silk
A Tufts team has figured out how spiders and silkworms spin such strong silk, which could have far-reaching implications for everything from hospital dressings to body armor.
Medford/Somerville, Mass. [08-29-03] While humans have relied on silk for more than 2,000 years, scientists have never been able to unravel the mystery of how spiders and silkworms produced their incredibly strong fibers - until now. In a newly published study, Tufts researchers discovered the mechanism for production of strong silk, providing critical new information about nature's strongest fiber.
"The entire process is controlled by the amount of water, which is so simple," Tufts' David Kaplan, a professor of biomedical engineering who led the research team, told Reuters.
Spiders and silkworms both produce silk from a gel-like solution of proteins which is spun into silk fibers. Scientists have previously tried to replicate the process using similar protein solutions, but were never able to produce fibers with the same strength as real silk.
According to the Tufts team, spiders and silkworms regulate the mixture of water and proteins, controlling the entire process. The discovery helps explain how spiders and silkworms kept the gel-like proteins from solidifying too quickly, resulting in a permanent block in the organism's spinning system.
"Kaplan and Hyoung-Joon, a postdoctoral fellow, copied the process in the lab, creating silk fibres by smearing the gel between sheets of glass," reported the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
The Tufts research, which was published Thursday in the international science journal Nature, could give scientists a new approach to creating artificial silk.
"We have identified key aspects to this process that should provide a roadmap for others to optimize artificial spinning of silks as well as in improved production of silks in genetic engineered host systems such as bacteria," reported the Associated Press.
Kaplan says the discovery could have far reaching implications.
"The finding could lead to the development of processing methods resulting in new high-strength and high performance materials," Kaplan, who chairs Tufts biomedical engineering department, told London's Guardian newspaper.
From clothing to military applications, artificial silk could be used to improve a wide range of products.
"[The Tufts scientist said] the new knowledge can be applied to manufacturing high-strength materials like sporting equipment, hiking gear and protective clothing for police and military personnel," reported the Associated Press.
Strong and flexible, silk offers advantages over existing materials like Kevlar and nylon.
"Kevlar, an artificial ballistic protection material used in military apparel, is strong but not very flexible," reported the Associated Press. Nylon is just the opposite: flexible but not strong.
"Silk seems to bridge that gap," Kaplan told the international news service.
Artificially produced silk could also result in new advances in medicine.
"[Over the past two decades,] there's been a real strong interest in whether this unique silk with its very nice mechanical properties of strength and flexibility, can be turned into different fibers, make it into film, use it for organ and tissue repair," Kaplan told the Associated Press.
Kaplan's team - which collaborated with scientists and experts from across the University including colleagues in the chemical, biological and biomedical departments to the veterinary and dental schools - has already begun using silk to repair torn ligaments.
"In 2002, Kaplan and some medical colleagues used silk as a scaffold to grow cells for repairing common injuries to knee ligaments," reported the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
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.
So does this mean we're going to start arming the cops with spidersilk so they can assist Spiderman in his pursuit of justice? Cool!
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
1 - Buy a red and blue fantasy
2 - Get an ACME silk thrower
3 - Capture the bad guys
4 - ????
5 - PROFIT !
-
Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
We call this religion 'Islam.'
Let's just hope the spiders don't use the DMCA against the scientists.
fuck! not again dude, its totally time to dump those shares in First Mandarin Silk Co.
... but isn't it that the larvae of a kind of moth that produces silk for fabric industry use? The larvae spinds the silk to form a cocoon, and people uses the cocoon to make silk thread.
Do you honestly think anyone EVER seriously considered farming spiders for their silk? The idea of unimaginable numbers of spiders all together is chilling even to the bravest of us. And of course they'd discover that black widows or brown recluses or giant bird spiders produced the strongest silk, and then they would escape....
*shudder*
...
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."
Are the proteins in question synthetically produced or are they extracted from goat milk?= 01/02/0 8/2215253&mode=thread&tid=99
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid
Next up, Seth Industries & Automobiles! Silksteel cars with diamond windshields and pistons and of course a dimensional warp generator!
Hate me!
However, you can't have too many silk researchers working on the project - when you put them too close together, they eat each other.
Fucking lameass filter
"Scientists Crack Silk's Secret"
Well it's nice to know we have this problem all sown up.
There were stories about the "discovery" of how spider silk self-assembled a while back.
Of course, I've not read the article linked above.
http://www.exn.ca/Stories/2000/06/19/56.asp
I can't find it now, but they talked last year about how they'd figured out how the spiders assembled the strands and that they'd applied that to a industrial method to pull the unassmbled silk through a small hole and it would self-assemble.
Yes, finally! We can start producing super-strong silk boxers to protect all us sexy geeks from the swarms of girls outside our rooms. Personally, I'm all for reducing user latency in the kernel and reading the latest rant by RMS, but *indestructable silk boxers* get me really excited. I'm blowing through several pairs a week when I leave the dark, secluded safety of my room to get more gin and tonic at the store. I certainly can't make the swarm go away, but this takes care of a symptom!
Gee, Tufts University? Now THAT is a truly appropriate place for them to have made such a breakthrough discovery in the science of spider silk. ;)
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
I don't suppose it occured to any of these rocket scientists to put the spiders in seperate cages.
...or better yet, genetically modify the spiders to be nice! Perfect plot for a B-grade movie with LL Cool J; the spiders are only PRETENDING to be nice! Mwuahahahaha...
Please help metamoderate.
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.
Now the spider silk suspension bridge across the Gibralter Strait can be made a reality! The diameter of the bundled steel cables would have been to heavy to be supported.
I imagine a bizarre cult of disgruntled former Kevlar workers sacrificing one of the spider-silk goats.
What ever happened with the spider-silk goat and cow experiments anyway? Or is that how they got enough material for the current breakthrough?
Hey! HEY! Stop that! No goatse links!
You don't suppose this stuff could be strong enough to make a space elevator, could it?
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
You're just another fucknut.
One of them comes out of a worm. The other is produced by spiders.
Buggy wheels no longer needed as automobile usage expands.
Microsoft developes new "Windowing" operating system.
OJ didn't do it.
sheesh!
I don't have any mod points but I thought it was funny. sorry man.
"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.
The problem was that the silk produced that way was not as strong as the natural one. Now they figured out that part.
./ is becoming a warez news site? I haven't played "Silk's Secret" yet, but its publisher is surely very unhappy with this and may sue the "Sc1ent1sts".
SiLK which is used for microprocessor applications is not connected in any way to spider silk. The former is an acronymn for a resin
(aromatic hydrocarbon) made by Dow Chemicals and used by IBM and other chip companies as an insulator between the multiple layers of wires on a chip. Silicon Low-K = SiLK
"It's obvious that they couldn't have discovered the secret to making silk that quickly without access to SCO's intellectual property," said Darl McBride, SCO's president. He continued, "In 1999, they were making some silk, but it was low quality. Then, suddenly, over the course of a year or so, their silk became enterprise quality. Stuff that took other people 30 years took them months."
In a move considered to be brilliant in the business world, SCO bought the patents on silk production from God in 2000 for an undisclosed sum. "We've been looking to leverage those patents ever since" said McBride.
Right now, SCO isn't planning on suing individual spiders, although they won't rule out the possibility. "We've considering going after some of the nuisance species, such as brown recluses and black widows, first," said Chris Sontag. "We've been warned by our attorneys that doing such would expose us to the possibilities of bites and nasty wounds, so it's really something we don't want to do right now."
Eric Raymond, president of the Open Silk Initiative, says that God lost protection on His silk production techniques by creating so many different species that use the intellectual property and not entering into any official licensing agreement with them. "It's a little late to be worrying about that now", said Raymond. A 1993 lawsuit regarding silk production methods also cast doubt on the validity of the patents.
Meanwhile, some spiders have openly questioned Raymonds repeated assertions that he represents them or their opinions in these matters.
Do you have ESP?
I want run-proof stockings and sexy lingerie out of this stuff.
I'm too lazy to read the articles, but I hope they didn't do that in USA...my gosh, the DMCA agents will nail them !
spiders can't be farmed (when you put them too close together, they eat each other). :)
Scientists have a lot to learn from the spiders in my appartment, which probably will host a president election before I reach home to start the vacum cleaner
If you're a retard, that is.
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
Okay, you've got my attention. How on earth did you manage to get caught in a cattle stampede? It must be a good story.
c-hack.com |
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
Artificial diamonds, artificial silk...is it possible to create artificial gold?
I have this piece of wood in the back yard covered with spiders. Guess they should have called me...
This is my sig.
Poor spiders. When in close confines, do you diagnose then with Arachnapobia or Autophobia (fear of yourself)?
You know what?
How on earth would you use silk as a substitute for kevlar? How much of the stuff would actually be needed to block a single round? It does not seem feasible to me, but it would be great! Strong yet lightweight. It is amazing that something so natural is superior to so call 'technology'
These poor defenseless spiders are being abused by the evil corporate silk manufactures, they are being held against their will to produce more of a substance than nature dictates they should...
Wait a second, I have arachnaphobia, STICK IT TO EM!
Learn something new.
Instead, we need to try to change that which is being abused: the DMCA.
Perhaps we should write to your congressperson or favorite supreme justice about how you think the DMCA is bad or unconstitutional (respectively).
You can't blame Google for following a crooked law.
The space unintentionally left unblank.
Some silk reflects light in the UV range which is thought to attract flies. dense read.
Another possible use is to confuse potential predators Silky doodles may confuse spiders' enemies
I think the main benefit of thinness maybe that less resources are used in its manufacture. Just my 2 cents worth.
I was just going to point that out..
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
...aren't the scientists the product of those millions of years of evolution?
I was under the impression that silk was made by worms and not spiders.
Has anyone else noticed that Scientific American seems to be going downhill? It's getting less and less scientific. What was that recent cover article, "Are You a Hologram?". Please.
On the other hand, Science News is going pretty strong. Let's hear it for good science!
Only rats and weasels would resort to those tactics...
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
Here are links to more information on the subject:
Goatse
Poop
Bzzt. Another tragedy of slashdot idiots and bad moderators. Parent is trying to be humorous, reference to alchemy was metaphorical. Next?
The younger nerds and geeks should love the spider-silk boxers, the added flexibity will make wedgies a lot less painful.
You're wrong about that I'm afraid. It has been known for quite some time how to produce gold from other elements. (calling it artificial gold dosen't make any sense because it's real gold, indistinguishable, of course, from any other atom of gold). It is done by bombarding Mercury with Deuterons: Hg200 + H2 ---> Au198 + He4. Unfortunately Gold 198 is radioactive and decays back to Mercury in a few days. Glen Seaborg did a simillar experiment in the late '70's. The catch is that you would expend much more money to make the energy(probably thousands of times more) to accelerate the Deuterons in order to create the gold than you could ever recover by selling what you produced.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Obviously the spiders are from omicron-persei 8. "Why doesn't Ross, the largest of the Friends, simply eat the others?"
In all this time we still haven't figured out how to turn lead into gold, either.
Why do we bother with such poinless things like this. The thing that needs to be invented is an outdoor couch. This could be made out of the same material as stain proof pants. I think that this advances in this material will amke this possible.
El mejor aislante capacitivo entre pistas conductoras del microchip: un compuesto de Azufre. Ventaja: reduccion de capacidad, reduccion de intensidad, reduccion de consumo electrico, reduccion de calor (debido a la reduccion de intensidad) y aumento de frecuencia de trabajo.
El mejor conductor termico solido no metalico (aislante) cubriendo las pistas conductoras sin afectar a sus capacidades: un misterio por investigar.
No hablo del tema de los mejores conductores metalicos porque el mejor tiene el precio de plata o de oro.
open4free
The other holy grail of biomimetics is to replicate photosynthesis - turning sunlight directly into fuel.
We just gotta understand fleas and jump out of this rock!
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.
Wow now you can really say you were surfing the "web".
>>>
The islam has proven to be very scientific hundreds of years ago, nobody knows how fast science might have advanced had christian crusaders not burned all those islamic bibliaries.
>>>
Actually, they were burned well before Islam ever existed. Look up Hypatia and the Library of Alexandria.
qts (who's forgotten his password)
m
testing out my trending skills
Ever notice how the media only tells you another soldier died today, etc, etc?
They don't say there's routine chaos in the streets. They don't say there's no water, no power. They don't say the free market isn't working already over there. They don't tell you that every single Iraqi hates all the American imperialists.
But they would if they could, because many in the american media (fox notwithstanding) want to see Bush and America fail.
Instead, all they have is a few soldiers dying, so they latch onto it with desperation. Incidentally, while I mourn the loss of men and women of honor, a couple hundred dead soldiers is nothing compared to say.... the 10,000 french who died because the french couldn't be bothered to come back from vacation to look after the elderly and sick.
Moreover, we want the Islamofascists attacking our soldiers in Iraq, because our soldiers are well-prepared for it, and kill the imported 'freedom fighters' in great numbers. The bombing of the mosque and the UN recently only shows that the islamofascists are so desperate they're pissing in their own food. They had no greater friend against America than the UN, and now they don't even have that anymore. The more desperate they are, the closer they are to defeat.
Every goat fucking jihaadist who dies fighting our soldiers is one less that will cause their trouble on our shores. So bring em on.
Remember, most of the press hates Bush just like you do. Combined with the old adage 'no news is good news,' then I hope you can imagine why the news you get is trying desperately to make it look like America is failing. The lack of categories they can claim America's failure in should give you an indication that things are going well, for a country only a few months out of a war, with people who would continue it pouring over the border every day.
The Iraqi police have already caught a few of the mosque bombers, and made them sing like canaries. Their intent is to try to keep things chaotic so that more unwelcomed (by the Iraqi people) 'freedom fighters' can pour over the borders.
By the way, did you hear about that Iraqi couple who named their kid George Bush? Or that the imported islamofascists are having increasing trouble attack American Soldiers directly, to the point where they've had to quintiple the 'kill a yankee' bounty? And that these same fucks are having trouble melting into Iraqi crowds, because the Iraqi crowds split around them, to leave them open to American retaliation?
I hate responding to AC's, but then I remembered that Eurotrolls probably eat up any news that can vaugely be taken as anti-american.
A few hundred soldiers over several months is cheap for what we're trying to do there. The $16-40 billion dollars yearly is chump change for the United States.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
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
guys,
i could not find this crack on astalavista.box.sk
Plz point me 2 where I can d/l this crack
I know this is slashdot, but if anyone bothered to read the article (not holding my breath) it says the reason is simple, the spiders eat eachother.
The SiLK they use in semiconductor manufacture is not the same as the Silk in this article. SiLK stands for "Spin on Low K" dielectric. Nothing to do with Silk Worm Silk other than the fact they are both Spun. Paul
Sure the silk wouldn't break and the bullet wouldn't pierce it and enter into the body. But wouldn't the flexibility actually be a bad thing? The bullet would travel further before rebounding and still pierce into the flesh. Not saying much for silk body armor the bullet doesn't get in but you still have a hole 2 inches deep in the flesh.
At best I could see this reducing the damage from bullet wounds, not actually stopping damage altogether.
-cp-
Spider silk is strong, but it's not the strongest fibre we have. Ballistic polyethylene (ultra-high-density and molecular weight shopping bag material) is stronger and is already being used in bullet-proof vests. IIRC either is stronger than ballistic nylon (aka kevlar). Diamond prices are artificially inflated by a diamond equivalent of OPEC. So neither development is probably all that revolutionary.
Keep in mind folks that proteins are typically produced from bacterial growths in milligrams/liter concentrations. Some proteins can be extracted from natural products such as egg whites or whey or even cow blood; that's how large amounts of dietary protein can be collected. The proteins in silk would have to be extracted from the insects themselves or synthetically prepared or prepared from a (bacterial or insect) cellular growth. None of these methods produce the amounts of proteins needed to mass produce anything, much less in a cost-effective manner. DON'T buy that silk industry stock just yet!
Nope, you had it right the first time. Some strands of a spider's web are sticky, some are not. It's not for "extra support for the web" as it is "it's nice to be able to walk around without sticking to my own house." The spiders know which strands are which. And if they have to step on a sticky strand, they just pull themselves loose.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
If I recall, a Tufts scientist imported gypsy moth caterpillars from England in hopes of doing this very thing. He shrouded a tree and let them go into it. A storm came along, destroyed the shroud and the rest is history! Gypsy moths, with no known predator, became a major infestation in the east, defoliating everything in their path, causing people to slip all over the place, car crashes from skidding and in one case stopping a freight train from climbing a grade (ugh!). I hope they've done better this time....
So it's like a sorority...
This is why I hate it when people say, "we'll never cure AIDS, Cancer, etc." Everything Nature does is a biochemical process that can be cracked, understood and ultimately replicated.
By storing electricity, I mean, providing a facility that efficiently captures power produced by base load generation during offpeak hours for use during the next days peak hours.
This is my sig.
True... but what would be nice is the next best thing to gold, ie a cheaply produceable substance that possesses the characteristics of gold that make gold desirable: high electrical conductivity at room temperature, doesn't rust, is ductile enough to be stretched into sheets or wires only a handful of atoms thick, and of course, pretty to look at and easy to mix with other metals to create attractive alloys for jewelry.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You mean it comes out of where?
The article does say that, but there are lots of farmed animals that are kept separate from each other for various reasons. Rabbits, for example, will frequently need to be kept separate except for breeding due to some rather vicious expressions of territoriality. There's nothing that says that you can't keep the spiders in separate cages, is there? Besides, it's been done before, something the article doesn't mention.
~ Leilah
one's morality and one's actions are not the same thing.
from this you can see how relative moralities exist in a feedback loop w/ one's actions and the actions of others. lops intersect all the time, too.
if you cannot see this, but insist that actions must "logically follow" from morality, that's fine, too. logic is a useful tool w/ computers, in debate, and for understanding certain systems, so it is no surprise to see its attempted use to describe how the actions of human beings reflect their morality. but when the surf breaks, does the whitecap mean the sun is dancing mad?
What they really wanted to say was... Scientists (Go To Porn Site To Search Inside Butt) Crack (And Find) Silk's (Of Victoria) Secret
> Since there were far more people on the earthd uring "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. The taking of a human life should NEVER be measured in percentages; by doing so you erroneously minimize the value of a single life. Those who kill less people because they had less opportunity are still less loathsome than those who kill more. While it's possible they would've done more harm had they been able, it's impossible to measure -- accurately and objectively -- what might have been "if".
Cultured Diamonds Are Real!
Cultured diamonds are real diamonds. These are not cut glass or cubic zirconium. This is not like remaming USB v1.1 USB v2.0. This is not even calling a movie full screen instead if mutilated by truncation. Cultured diamonds are just as real as natural diamonds; indeed, since some culturing processes generate diamonds with fewer imperfections and impurities than natural diamonds, some cultured diamonds are superior to natural diamonds. Only someone from DeBeers would try to argue that cultured diamonds are fake.
Impeach Bush
OK, time to kit up with fully functional web blasters - I'll be swinging from the buildings in tights before you know it.
You'd need lots of these super cords arranged in some sort of screen to STOP the jumbo jet, and even then, what happens to the Silk-Screen when it is coated with burning jet fuel.
There is still work to be done, but I don't think man-made silk will be stopping any jumbo jets in the near future.
-Evil Lord Drewcifer
The ability to manufacture, rather than harvest, silk would be a boon in many ways. Currently, silk is recovered from worm cocoons in labor intensive operations. (I toured a silk factory in China once. Yes, they use machines, but there is a lot of labor too.)
I suspect even the ability to make silkworm-quality-silk at a reasonable cost would be a big improvement.
Also, this is not the be-all for things. There are nanotube technologies that exceed spider silk for strength. However, cost is still an issue in both fields, so silkworms and the associated factories still have work to do.
SPIDERMAN!
Human-spider hybrids could produce your silk and not eat each other.
except for the part where it gives you radiation poisoning and then melts back into mercury and makes you go crazy.
I remember the same thing. The problem is that the environmentalists don't like the massive work needed to build these systems on an effective scale.
Storm King Mountain overlooks the Hudson River near West Point. NY planned to build a massive resovoir at the top of the mountain. During the low demand night hours excess electricity would be used to pump water to the resovoir. During peak demand hours, the water would flow back down driving hydorelectric turbines. The net result would be fewer power plants and less polution.
After a 30 year legal battle, the environmentalists won. The outcome of the conflict established the right of citizen groups to sue a government agency to protect natural resources and scenic beauty.
Storm King Mountain eventually became a State Park with lots of hiking trails. In 1999 a forest fire at the mountain began detontating unexploded ordinance. Apparently the mountain was used by the US Army for target practice as early as the 1840s. The park is now closed to hikers.
So, we have no power station and no hiking trails. Great!
Consider Rover.
Dogs were the first animals to be domesticated. We don't know how exactly. But some genius may have thrown a proto-dog a bone. The domestication may have taken dozens or hundreds of generations. Does dog DNA contain genes not found in Wolf DNA? IIRC, some, but less than you might think...
Anyhow, if we were to ask the ancestors who took the first steps in domesticating the wolf whether they would accept some magical help that would change the nature of the wolf to convert it from a danger and a competitor into a friendly and useful companion in just one generation, do you think they would tell us it was unethical?
Maybe. I don't know.
Let me ask you a different question. Do you feel there would more of an ethical problem with fiddling with the genome of a wild animal? Domesticated animals already have had lots of manipulation, in addition to living in our artificial world...
Consider ourselves. We have domesticated ourselves. Our features are more neotonous than those of our ancestors, just as the process of domestication has made dogs and other of our creatures more neotonous...