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MIT Labs Moves Ahead In Synthesizing Spider Silk
icepick72 writes in with a link to an ExtremeTech article on new methods for creating synthetic spider silk. This material, like lycra in many ways, has a number of unique properties. The MIT lab that created it is being monitored by military elements, keenly interested in applications of this material to front-line technologies. From the article: "The secret of spider silk's combined strength and flexibility, according to scientists, has to do with the arrangement of the nano-crystalline reinforcement of the silk as it is being produced--in other words, the way these tiny crystals are oriented towards (and adhere to) the stretchy protein. Emulating this process in a synthetic polymer, the MIT team focused on reinforcing solutions of commercial rubbery substance known as polyurethane elastomer with nano-sized clay platelets instead of simply heating and mixing the molten plastics with reinforcing agents."
"large metal spider butts"
I hear one group tried this, but a soon as one of them mentioned the word "large", the female spider attached to the butt ate the whole group.
Seriously, I worked in a nylon spinning plant a long time ago and a large knitting machine looks a bit like a spiders butt Howvever, it takes a five story tall "machine" engineered with incredible presicion to make the fine threads that go into a stocking, the static on some parts of the machine can throw a spark over a foot long.
I don't know exactly how a spider's butt works (or for that matter a nylon plant), but I assume the spiders superiour abilities are related to the intricate and amazingly complex nano machinery inside every cell of the spider.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
1. When you're trying to visualize something, it's easier to relate it to something you see often. Which do you see more often, 30 rulers lined end to end, or a garbage truck?
2. Its easier to visualize less of something than more of something. Which is easier to visualize, a TV that is the height of 100,000 grains of sand, or a TV that is the width of a two-person sofa?
Slow Down, Cowboy! It's been 60 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment.
That's a rather unfair generalization. I'd say we average about .6wit. There are maybe 10% with their wits about them, 10% totally witless, about 55% are half-wits, and 25% are .8wits. Unfortunately the witless and the halfwits come out in droves, and most vote strait-ticket for whomever opposes gay people and reason.
With this :
1 1/0430240
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/
We may have sussed it.
Because you can - or because you should?
I'm not sure that's such an advantage. There's concentrated sulfuric acid in car batteries, people have been driving cars for a hundred years, how many people have suffered accidents from battery acid in that time? I mean, compared to overall accidents involving cars?
Industrial processes often involve nasty chemicals, at dangerous temperatures and pressures. That's no big deal, one can easily take all the necessary precautions. The problem is when the industrial process consumes a large amount of a limited resource, or when it generates a large amount of waste.
Something like "a 1/4 mile" is much better in my opinion.
The alternative is to tag it as magic.
Except if it were, it would seriously impact the longevity of the product, rendering it useless for things like construction. Who wants a building that's going to fall apart in ten or twenty years because of bacteria eating it?
Developers, Architects, Engineers, Contractors, Laborers, Brokers, Agents, Lawyers, and everyone else who makes money replacing it.
The world learned a long time ago that there is no money to be made in selling products that last.