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."

Comments

Re:I love these kinds of statements

[sarahbau]

Sounds like "It can transmit the entire library of congress in less than a minute."
If the author of TFA needs to dumb it down for him/herself, fine. But I wish they wouldn't assume that we all have a G.W.Bush I.Q. I hate it when they say something like "as long as 4200 garbage trucks lined up end to end." Am I supposed to visualize that? How long is a garbage truck exactly? It would be much easier for me to understand the scale of something if they actually gave the size instead of trying to relate it in terms of something else.

A many-splendoured thing

[DarkIye]

"This material, like lycra in many ways..."

Ok, I get that...

"...has a number of unique properties."

Wait. So, is it like lycra, or mostly unique?