Slashdot Mirror
Insect Substance Synthesized For Science
An anonymous reader wrote to mention an article discussing the successful synthesis of resilin, a super-elastic material used by insects to perform amazing feats. From the article: "Dr. Elvin predicted the substance would lead to everything from artificial arteries to spinal parts that would not wear out despite being flexed 100 million times. 'That's how many times you move your back in 50 or 60 years,' he said. It could also be used in micro electronics. 'We even imagine putting it in running shoes.'"
Lots of better (non-registration-required) links here:
+ News
http://news.google.com/news?q=resilin&btnG=Search
"We currently make sufficient material for research purposes, but this could be scaled up for commercial use," Dr Elvin said. "It looks a bit spaghetti [but] we can cast it in any shape."
The bikini - security through obscurity since 1943
... so to speak. No soul-eating registration required:
Harnessing flea power to create near-perfect rubber
Once they've got the gene(s?) into bacteria making more of the substance becomes very easy. Grow a whole bunch of the transgenic bacteria and extract product. Cost will vary with application. For everyday uses (running shoes) it'd be cheap but for implants into humans it needs to be a lot purer as to not trigger an immune response. Even small bits of leftover bacteria is a very bad thing. Pure typically = $$.
You can read more about it in BBC News (English) and in Astroseti (Spanish).
Faith does not move mountains, but drills can go through it.
Btw, spiders are not insects.
It's a non-volatile protein, not living cells like a kidney or liver. So theres a very low chance of rejection.
That hyperbole was invented by the reporter. The summary in Nature has no such claims.
I really hate it when scientific discoveries get FUBARed by the press. What is it with journalists? Why don't they have any common sense?
Non-volatile protein? What does that mean? Does it not trigger the immune system or is it not prone to explosion? Seriously, I'm a biochemist PhD student (I work with nucleic acids mostly...but still) and I've never heard that term.
The interesting thing is the g-forces involved. Impulsively (1 ms) give yourself a sufficient boost to be rocketed 1000 feet into the air. I think more likely your shoes would cause your legs to explode from the knee down.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
That sounds like unsubstantiated exxageration- eg no reality behind it. Now it may be true, but seems highly improbable to me?
One does tend to suspect any popular press story that makes mistakes of scaling like unto the ones in 1950s science fiction movies that have giant ants running around. For a basic primer on the goofiness of this claim, Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics would be one source.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I read the article, and all I can say is:
:)
"God Bless those Aussies"
Because they're using what nature & the almighty already provided for us, & we as human beings just had to study it and stumble upon it.
(This is living WITH nature, imo, not against it... & it sounds like it has NO serious chemical waste products either, as petroleum based products such as plastics possibly have, or possibly the rubber industry as it stands now).
LOL, it sounded like somekind of "physical energy capacitor" to me, from the part about how fleas utilize resilin to store jumping energy & releasing it in a nanosecond (etc./et all)... the railgun of leaping!
(Imagine Micheal Jordan with THIS STUFF in his shoes!)
*
APK
P.S.=> Between this resilin compound & also stem cell research? It may be a breakthru for spinal damage cases as well... amazing, & again - God Bless the Aussies for this one! apk
proteins and amino acid production via fermentation has proved to be a viable commercial approach in the past. This isn't as far fetched as say creating a space elevator with buckytubes.
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
Then there's the possibility that resilin itself might trigger an immune response. Not to mention the fact that degradation of the material over time hasn't been determined. Who cares if it can withstand being flexed 100 million times, if it can't withstand proteases and other reactive compounds in the human body?
Actually, proteins are the most antigenic molecule type. Any foreign protein rapidly has antibodies created against it. Thus why most immunizations these days attempt to use proteins from the organism to which you want immunity (or a carbohydrate-protein hapten setup).