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Spider Silk Cape Goes On Display
fangmcgee writes "Before anyone asks, no, it's not bulletproof. But that doesn't mean that the glistening yellow cape—the world's largest garment made entirely from spider silk—isn't a massive feat of engineering to be marveled. Now on public display for the first time at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the textile gets its unearthly gleam from the undyed filaments of the golden orb spider, a species of arachnid commonly found in Madagascar."
Not many people know it, but the apex of the Washington Monument is made of aluminum. At the time, it was the largest piece ever crafted anywhere in the world and it was a precious metal. Only two years later, aluminum became completely worthless when the Hallâ"Héroult process for mass production of pure aluminum was discovered.
There was a previous article showing that spider silk is stronger than steel weight for weight. Very cool and useful for a number of things.
Many different kinds of spider silk. One spider will typically produce several kinds depending on need (tensile strength, stickyness, elasticity). But the strongest kinds will typically blow even carbon fiber out of the water when it comes to tensile strength. Lots of difficulties to overcome still, but it is a fascinating field of research
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Spider silk isn't sticky by itself. It's essentially some very long protein filaments, same as worm-butt silk.
What makes spider orbs sticky is that the spider then deposits small droplets of glue along the threads.
But even spiders produce non-glued silk all the time. E.g., when a spider lowers itself by dangling on a silk filament, it doesn't bother putting glue on it.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.