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Genetically Engineered Silkworms Spin Spider Silk
disco_tracy writes "Silkworms have been modified to produce spider silk, creating a fabric that could be used in everything from bulletproof clothing to artificial tendons." For some reason, this is far less revolting to me than the idea of spider silk being milked out of goats.
Does whatever a spider, um...
Some of the best (sometimes prophetic) fictional quotes ever.
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"Compared to normal spider silk, it's not as strong," said Malcolm Fraser, a scientist from the University of Notre Dame. "But we are confident that, this being our first attempt, that we will be able to tweak the system to bring the system closer to the strength of true spider silk."
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Why? It's the most cutting edge technology in the world.. I don't know how you can call yourself a geek and not be at least marginally interested in it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
It's the most cutting edge technology in the world..
For this specific case, I reckon qualifying this as the "best-protection-against-cutting-edges technology" would apply.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
"They're takin our jerbs!"
-The Spider Goats
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Using that silk should produce extra-sharp scytes...maybe you could even skip a lot of the required steps and sharpen them next directly with moonlight.
Why?
For a lot of reasons. It's being pursued without any caution whatsoever. Look at the Nazi scientists at Monsanto. Nearly killed the Monarch butterflies and have actively researched and implemented "death codes" into their projects to protect intellectual property that should have never been granted. Technology aside, they are far more damaging than the entertainment Mafiaa to the world with their lawsuits, strong arm tactics, reduced seed diversity, and just plain extortion of farmers the world over.
Cool technology to be sure, but the people that are involved in it certainly don't seem to have humanity's interests at heart.
Not to mention I feel that not enough research is really conducted to determine if the GMO food they are producing is really healthy in the first place. What are the real affects to humans eating it? Animals eating it? Affect on the environment in which it is grown (Monarch Butterflies again)?
BTW, the poster said critical of the technology, and did not indicate any level of disinterest. I am greatly interested in GMO technology, but pursued correctly and safely and absolutely without any ridiculous BS of the deathcodes being inside it..
You don't have to be crazy or disinterested in GMO to be highly critical of companies like Monsanto. I am sure someone will claim that I am trolling, ignorant, and misinformed of GMO. Perhaps that is true. My statements regarding Monsanto though, stand on well-known facts. Just maybe, maybe, GMO might be more accepted if Monsanto had never been formed as a company.
The Mithril vest could become a reality again! I can't wait. and I am really glad they didn't do the Spider - Goats. Had a hard enough time getting rid of those things with my faithful Sting...
- Dan.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
I agree, genetically engineered silkworms *are* cool.
Well that's a relief. I much prefer the idea of a Really Big Silk Worm than a Really Big Spider to spin the cable for the space elevator. I for one welcome our new silk moth overlords.
No. That is an incorrect analogy. I did not say I was not interested in GMO, in fact, I explicitly stated that I was interested. What I was responding to was a question of why somebody could be critical of GMO technology. There is a difference between criticism and disinterest.
You also seem to be claiming that I am willing to completely write-off and demonize a technology simply because some people have done a bad thing with it. Not true. Once again, my post was clear about that.
GMO is, to me, a clearly abused technology in the hands of dangerous people with questionable motives.
somebody tries to tape these things to their wrists and jump out of a window in a leotard...
Spectra cable is right on par strengthwise, but it's a chemical nightmare to make compared to silk. You don't have to truck away thousands of gallons of spent sulfuric acid. Silk isn't rejected by the body. And if it can be made in the right organisms it can be pretty cheap. Goats or plants would make the fiber at a very reasonable price point, silkworms are still orders of magnitude better than spiders. As spiders eat the silk and each other.
FYI, the Monarch butterfly report showing harm was discredited due to the concentrations of pollen placed on the milkweed. It was way more than would normally by found in the wild.
And thank your for for the support.
That said, here are some links you might find informative;
Monsanto
more Monsanto
Yet more Monsanto (busy aren't they)
intersting site
Canola
GM canola in the wild
Possible wipe out of terrestrial plant life
another one
Have fun reading.
_
I am usually very critical of GMO tech but even I have to say this is cool.
With great GMO tech, comes great responsibility.
So, when silk worms finally do make silk as strong as spiders' silk, then will those silk moths be able to open their own cocoons?
Danish studies have shown clear correlation between how well informed people are about GMO and how positive their attitude is towards it. The correlation is negative.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
I am tired of the ridiculous "ten times stronger than Kevlar" or "ten times stronger than steel" and such garbage.
For the record: Kevlar is not particularly strong, compared to other high-end materials. What it is though, is ductile - that is, absorbs a nice amount of energy while being plastically deformed. Spider silk does this even better.
Steel can be had in strengths that vary between as low as 200 MPa (bad cast iron) to 3000 MPa (piano wire).
Kevlar is somewhere at 800 MPa or so - stronger than regular construction steel (235-420 MPa) but weaker than hardened sheet steel (900-1300 MPa).
The strongest material you may encounter outside of a laboratory is glass fiber, which can reach strengths of up to 5000 MPa.
Carbon fiber is weaker (~2000 MPa) than glass fiber, but it is more rigid - which is the sought after property most of the time.
Titanium, while having some nice properties, isn't incredibly strong either - around 1000 MPa at best.
Even when considering density, steel usually holds its own quite well - especially when designing things that are supposed to have a certain rigidity, where steel really shines - and while exotic materials may have advantages they are never along the line of "ten times", more like "two times" at best.
I'm a mechanical design engineer and I am really not amused when people show me their titanium golf clubs and claim that it is ten times stronger than steel an cost a hundred times more than gold, or other preposterous claims like that. Titanium is $100/kg, tops.
To be fair, Monsanto has changed recently: wearing SS uniforms in the lab is no longer strictly mandatory.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Is that what the death codes are there for? I thought they were there so farmers have to keep buying seed from Monsanto even if they treble the price once self-perpetuating varieties have gone the way of the dodo.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
you must have missed the article we had a few months ago about the farmer that finally won his case against Monstanto. It included links to some *VERY* compelling evidence that GP's stance on Monstanto is not hot air and scare mongering.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Studies have also shown a clear correlation between making wild claims and citing sources. The correlation is negative.
You nead a reason why genetically modified food is bad? Well, let's see:
They genetically altered a major food source (grain) without really knowing the long term consequences (the splicing and insertion of new genes basically occurs in random places of the target DNA).
Because they 'enhanced' it (made it resistant to the weedkiller they sell), they made it very attractive to cultivate.
This, combined with aggressive marketing lead to world-wide use of their altered grain varieties (which they control completely through patents).
The genetically altered grain cross-breads with non-altered grains, so eventually the whole world will have GE grain.
Now imagine that this altered grain turns out to be particulary vulnerable to some new strain of virus.
These things happen, but with sufficient genetic variety, only a small part of the crops are affected.
But since we basically created a grain monoculture, most of the crops will be lost. Sure there are some reserves, but not in sufficient quantities to prevent famine.
And it would take years to turn the limited amount of unaltered grain (which btw people would want to eat) in sufficient starter seed for the whole world.
That's why genetically modified food is a bad thing when controlled by mega corporations.
This reminds me...can anyone explain how spider silk can be made into bullet-proof vests?
When someone starts shooting at my house, I don't immediately think "Let me go find a spider-web to hide behind". At my house. When the shooting starts.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Of course not. And a few fibers of kevlar won't either. Put together tightly makes a bit of difference, though.
Getting your science info from a site called "purefood.org" (which links to a "study" funded by the Green Party) is generally a bad idea. The modified strain of K. Planticola (SDF20) was shown to be unsuitable because the byproducts could not be used in the manner intended, not because it was going to cause Global Disaster(tm). The claims made in that article go way beyond what the actual studies showed, and aren't supported by the data.
Scaremongering FUD != science.
Common silk is reasonably bullet resistant. You can shoot a low caliber bullet at a silk hanky (held by the top) and the bullet will push the silk aside rather than penetrate it. Spider silk is much stronger, ergo, better for this sort of thing.
Kevlar body armor is generally formed of kevlar cloth sewn in layers, backed by hard metal or ceramic plates. The bullet will absolutely penetrate, but (generally) won't go all the way through.
A material with a higher tensile strength will offer better protection because the bullet will dissipate more energy punching through the layers. Ideally you could cut weight as well (which is the biggest problem with body armor).
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Gram for gram, spider webs are stronger than steel (or at least have more tensils strength).
Free Martian Whores!
Citation Needed
Honestly, you sound like a paranoid, Luddite, conspiracy theorist.
If you think he's a naive moron you might try educating him, if you do in fact know what you're talking about.
Farmer A plants GM corn. Farmer B plants non-GM corn. Pollen from A's corn pollenates B's corn, which he uses part of as seed corn for the next season. B has now infringed Monsantos patent on the gene sequence of his crop. That's just evil on Monsanto's part.
Now explain to me (or give a link) why Monsanto couldn't have possibly unknowingly introduced a genetic weakness that makes it suceptable to some plant disease? He's not talking about introducing a virus that will affect humans or animals, he's talking about unintentionally introducing a genetic weakness that could affect future corn crops. His argument was logical, your "argument" was worthless and your analogy idiotic.
Free Martian Whores!
So, what makes you think that we aren't (mostly) using monoculture strains now? I don't see this as a compelling argument for that reason - most large agriculture is already monoculture (http://bss.sfsu.edu/fischer/IR%20305/Readings/global.htm). Not that that's a good thing, but it's the way it is because, presumably, it is economically desirable - at least until the next rust fungus or whatever shows up that targets the favored strain(s).
Yeah but were those studies Danish?
Canola is a brand name awarded to a Canadian company for their genetically modified rape seed.
You fail to mention that non-GM rape seed and its oil are poisonous.
By genetically modifying the rape seed, Canola substantially increased the world's food supply.
But GM is evil right?
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Mmmmmmm... Daaaaanishhh....
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
This particular line of thinking is covered very well in the book titled "The Windup Girl", essentially covering mega-corporations producing diseases to kill off their opponents engineered grain, and vice-versa. Very good read indeed.
Ceramic (or metal) plates are only used when you need to go up against rifle rounds. Standard vests that can protect against handguns typically consist of many layers of kevlar bonded together with resin to provide stiffness. (so it actually stops the bullet, rather than being dragged along with it into your body)