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.'"
It looks a bit spaghetti [but] we can cast it in any shape. Dr. Elvin, I presume? Or is it .... Peter Parker...
Short life span, and extreme numbers give them accelerated evolution compared to other animals.
While resilin sounds interesting, the article seems a bit hyped up...
"If humans had such pads they could leap 100-storey buildings"
That sounds like unsubstantiated exxageration- eg no reality behind it. Now it may be true, but seems highly improbable to me?
I hope resilin does neat things, but I'd rather read about it in Science magazine or Scientific American.
If humans had such pads they could leap 100-storey buildings.
I dont beleive it for a second. Take scale into account! The force needed and the required energy could not be stored in a bit of rubber between you're legs.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
Sure, anything that can be done in the lab can be done on a larger scale. But they don't know whether or not this kind of thing would be economically feasible when done on a larger scale. That's why it's called research, because we don't already know. It might be feasible, but the truth is we won't really know until it's happened.
Furthermore, these kind of things usually don't pan out. Even it it does, it won't be practically available to the general public for decades because of the secondary technology that needs to be developed first to make it feasible. Scientists like to make grandiose claims about what their research will lead to because it helps bring in funding for continued research. That doesn't mean they will pan out, only that the scientist thinks they might.
It doesn't matter if a swimmer has the best fins in the world if the guys in speedos mate more frequently and have enough progeny to ensure that some survive the attacks of their quicker swimming brethren.
That IS fitness. If that's the case then the speedos are fitter (is that a word?) than the flippers. Fitness in the evolutionary sense of the term doesn't mean the strongest, the most powerfull, or the most impressive -- it means the most capable to pass on genetic material.
Sometimes that means avoiding starving to death. Sometimes that means getting a lot of action. The only evolutionary measure of the "fittest" is (s)he who has the most kids. Promiscuity, then, is the quintessential evolutionary trait.
Now that I stop to think about it, maybe THAT'S the problem the I.Ders have with evolution.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
"... bacteria should be building spaceships now."
Why bother buidling spaceships when they are space ships?
Panspermia <- All about extremophiles... well some about extremeophiles.
Although, considering the recent slashdot article relating to the use of plastics for spaceships, chiton may be a great hull due to the low chance of becoming a hull of heavy unstable isotopes after being exposed to cosmic radiation.
I suppose you could coax bacteria to deposit chiton onto the interior of an inflated space baloon, strap on some propulsion, avionics and life support and voila - spaceship! You could even engineer something that likes to build vigorously near high pressure gradients - micrometerite damage control.
Too bad there are no examples of biological space propulsion to copy. I guess that life support made out of life wouldn't be to far around the corner. Avionics would be another matter, space travel seems to require really, really precise navigation and control.
Gotta love biomimetics, and the great Wiki.
The issue is not that the Government should be doing the invention but that Australia has a history of breaking ground, passing off the "value add" to other countries and then buying back the value added product. In particular with respect to some pretty fundamental science. I am not sure I am in the same boat as the poster with respect to their feelings about that situation, but the point is certainly arguable that a little more government investment in those inventions would benefit the whole country greatly and continue to do so in the future. Such investments, according to the poster, are probably good investments from a socal perspective.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
And I'm pretty sure this "natural discovery" has or will be patented so that nobody else will be able to use it without paying through the nose.
Three cheers for having exclusive control over something that nature provided for free!
If you where 100th your height you would be ~1/100^2 as strong but ~ 1/100^3 as light thus if you could jump 1 foot in the air now you could still jump ~1 foot into the air even though you where only ~2cm tall. (Ignoring things like wind resistance ect.) It's funny but if the "Honey I shrunk the kids" thing really happened they would have been a lot stronger than any of the insects they came into contact with. When you start scaling the human body down you find that it's incredibly strong for it's size (~2m tall) which is why insects don't get more than about 1 foot in size.
PS: However the basic strictures of the human body don't scale down to that size, in the real world, which is why mammals tend to be at least 2inches long when full grown.