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Genetically Modifying Silk Worms For Super Silk
New submitter davidshenba sends this quote from the BBC:
"U.S. researchers have created silkworms that are genetically modified to spin much stronger silk (abstract). In weight-for-weight terms, spider silk is stronger than steel. ... Researchers have been trying to reproduce such silk for decades. But it is unfeasible to 'farm' spiders for the commercial production of their silk because the arachnids don't produce enough of it — coupled with their proclivity for eating each other. Silk worms, however, are easy to farm and produce vast amounts of silk — but the material is fragile. Researchers have tried for years to get the best of both worlds — super-strong silk in industrial quantities — by transplanting genes from spiders into worms. But the resulting genetically modified worms have not produced enough spider silk until now. GM worms produced by a team led by Professor Don Jarvis of Wyoming University seem to be producing a composite of worm and spider silk in large amounts — which the researchers say is just as tough as spider silk."
welcome our new super silkworm overlords.
Inside the article there was a mention that the GM silk could post a threat to the environment.
Call me dense, but I just don't get it.
We are not talking about something that last forever or what, we are talking about silk - something that is totally biodegradable, and some more, the GM material is a combination of silkworm and spider, both exist in nature.
Anyhoo, congrats to the scientists who come up with this idea.
...and get reminded of this? http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemon64.com/reviews/view.php%3Fid%3D466
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Will this make a shirt that only I will be able to wear and if someone tries to steal it it sticks to their hand like the anti theft ink found in department stores?
Then everything will be fine.
Actual quote from the actual fine article:
their eventual aim is to produce silk from worms that has the toughness of spider silk.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
Wonder if this is a part of an lead-in on the research.
Looks like WYU is sitting on a ton of patents around spider silk technologies.
Nicer pictures of this article can be found at http://inhabitat.com/genetically-modified-silkworms-spin-super-strong-spider-silk-for-bandages-and-bulletproof-vests/
I thought they were putting those spider genes into goats years ago to have them spin the super silk instead of milk. I guess that went nowhere.. I would have liked to seen some goat-spider beast running around...
So many injustices..so little time..
I have to upgrade my hovertank to silksteel armor, Yang won't know what hit him!!
...go home and invent new brand of steel bristle feather dusters for when these critters escape.
when da bitches try to rip em off me.
The problem is that loose thread was like a cheese wire and it ripped your dick off
I hope the Chinese get the credit for the original silkworm genes
Now I understand why that GM beats me at Chess all the time. He's genetically modified :-)
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NPR had a fascinating story a couple of years ago about a spider silk tapestry that had been woven. NPR.org Fabric as soft as silk but stronger than steel, the possibilities are fascinating even if I have to wait a while to have a "that guy" suit made out of the stuff.
Make love, not reality television.
... feel pain @ being boiled alive for their silk to be of any use? Or is this new silk so sturdy that the worms can't gnaw thru them, and that after the silk is unravelled, they are then free to become cocoons and whatever insect they develop into.
More to the point, can't better silk be synthetically produced on a large scale? Same question applies for other animal based textiles, such as wool, leather, fur, etc
Pound-for-pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on Earth.
It's also interesting for things that are only partly silk. Pashmina wool comes from the underside of the chin of the nepalese goat and is amazingly soft, but very fragile. You can't make things from it if you want to be able to wear them more than once, so you mix in some silk to add strength[1], but the more silk you add the more of the softness and warmth you lose. Stronger silk would mean that you could weave fabrics with a very small amount of silk and a lot of something softer.
[1] It amused me to see street sellers in NYC advertising pashmina shawls as '50% silk!' as if that was a good thing. The high quality ones are at most 20% silk. The silk is a lot cheaper than the wool.
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it is unfeasible to 'farm' spiders for the commercial production of their silk because the arachnids don't produce enough of it
These spiders obviously need a harsh lesson about the economic climate we live in. They're never going to produce enough if you just get some other creatures to make it instead. Rank all the spiders by silk production, fire the ones at the bottom of the list. Things'll soon turn around.
coupled with their proclivity for eating each other
That's actually a good sign. A little healthy competitive pressure.
I hate it when it's not clear from the figure or table which of the data refer to the baseline. For those who are interested, dragline is the base.
I do not get it. According to Table 1, modified fiber is 3 times thicker and have worse values???
For example, break stress of dragline is 658 MJ/m3, while the rest is at least 2 times less.
Maximum strain is better for modified, but what's the point of it? Who needs their silk stretched?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I see an upcoming SyFy 'original' movie on the way.
Now I have worm senses.
They should try giving the silkworms the spiders' proclivity for eating each other.
Just imagine - silk sheets in prison that are strong enough to tie together and climb out of your cell window.
Have gnu, will travel.
I am extremely ok with spider farming being infeasible. Accidentally wandering into a spider farm is the stuff of nightmares.
It amused me to see street sellers in NYC advertising pashmina shawls as '50% silk!' as if that was a good thing.
Amazing, since otherwise they seem like the kind of people you can trust.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
SpiderMoth, Followed by Attack of the MothSpiders, and Gargantua Spider Moth vs Monstrous Moth Spider
I used to own stock in Nexia Biotechnologies, a Canadian company. The goats weren't the problem. Extracting the silk proteins from the milk weren't the problem. Spinning the proteins into silk strands were the problem!
Many of the same proposed applications of the spider silk biosteel could also be fulfilled by nanotubes, but nanotubes would be even stronger. During the same time period that Nexia was improving its spinning process, several companies were making breakthroughs with nanotube manufacturing so that the price per inch would dramatically fall. Nexia saw the writing on the wall. Someone, somewhere, would make cheap nanotubes of appreciable lengths well before Nexia could make a competing offering.
There's also the debacle of Nexia vs. the FDA. Nexia argued that since their silks were natural substances, they didn't need stringent safety testing for applications such as medical sutures. The FDA agreed so Nexia pushed ahead with their next stages of research. Down the road, the FDA changed their mind. Nexia didn't have the capital to afford all the testing trials the FDA was now demanding.
Well before the Chinese company acquired Nexia, Nexia sold most of its intellectual property to an American company (in Virginia? Wyoming?). The bulk of that IP is proven counter-agents to certain chemical warfare attacks.
Interestingly, Nexia was trying to splice spider silk DNA into plants. Grow them as a crop. Grind up their leaves. Sift out the proteins. But then you're still stuck with the underwhelming spinning process.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
The point was they went with the wrong number because they didn't know any better. That's amusing. If they actually bumped up the number because they thought pashmina shawls with only 30% silk wouldn't sell as well, that would be hilarious.
Yeah, I got your joke... I just thought it was funny because I lived there and those guys were always so S-H-A-D-Y. :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
1) Create super genetically enhanced silkworms. Patent it!
2) Allow Super Silkworms (TM) to out compete and kill off all other silkworms.
3) Sue into oblivion anyone using your patent.
4) Profit!
Bioengineering/Patenting is like the (only) perfect business model, whereby your actual product will actively kill off your competition for you, so you profit twice, once on the actual product, and twice legally when you are the only game in town!