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Spider Silk Cape Goes On Display

Posted by samzenpus on from the 1-million-thread-count dept.

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."

21 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Obligatory Futurama... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    http://theinfosphere.org/Spiderians

    1. Re:Obligatory Futurama... by Nursie · · Score: 4, Funny

      One art please! /zoidberg

  2. Bulletproof? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sure, bulletproof would be nice, but what I really want to know is whether it'll let me block creatures with flying.

    1. Re:Bulletproof? by Rhacman · · Score: 2

      Spidersilk Cape (1 forest)

      Enchant Creature

      Sacrifice Spidersilk Cape: Enchanted creature can block flying until end of turn. You may sacrifice a spider you control to return Spidersilk Cape to your hand instead of moving it to the graveyard.

      It seemed a shame that an object of such beauty was ultimately betrayed by its utility.

      --
      Account -> Discussions -> Disable Sigs
  3. That's remarkable, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Godley spent five years collecting and harnessing over 1 million spiders in special “silking” contraptions to extract their threads, 24 critters at a time.

    On average, 23,000 spiders yield roughly 1 ounce of silk, making the process intensely laborious and time-consuming.

    I am amazed and impressed, but a part of me goes "wtf was the point?"

    Ah, well. That's one heck of an art project.

  4. Re:Hey... by smi.james.th · · Score: 3, Interesting

    TFA does describe some of the processing of the garment, so I'd assume that it would be wearable like normal silk.

    It's apparently also supposed to be very light. Is it strong too? Or is the point just to have done it because it was there? If its properties end up being worse than silk-worm silk then there isn't really much point.

    --
    One thing I know, and that is that I am ignorant...
  5. It is stronger than Mithril? by ciderbrew · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm sure it cost more than the whole shire to make. On the BBC, Horizon "Playing God". They show a lab that has altered the DNA of goats so they produce spider web protients in their milk which can be harvested.Makes production more feasible. [ As they have 8 legs you get more mutton too :)] http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mgxf

  6. Like aluminium I suspect by JanneM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Aluminium was once phenomenally rare and expensive. Napoleon had a set of highly valued plates made of the stuff. Breakthroughs in manufacturing made it a cheap, common material. I suspect this will go the same way, with synthetic versions becoming a utilitarian material among others. The cape will become an amusing historical footnote.

    --
    Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
    1. Re:Like aluminium I suspect by BetterSense · · Score: 2

      I doubt that. What will really happen is some giant corporation with a lot of patent lawyers will buy the "intellectual property" of synthetic spider silk and it will remain expensive, nobody will do any development work with it, and it will just be an interesting high-tech material used by people that either have a lot of money or are above having to worry about IP law (but I repeat myself). So you will see it in military and aerospace equipment and that's it.

    2. Re:Like aluminium I suspect by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      Why would we see it at all? TFA lists no practical advantage of using the material -- it was just an art project. With no advantage as a textile, it would only be useful as a luxury item anyway, and while I've no doubt that there's an eccentric millionaire or two about who might be interested in such a garment, it's no real loss for the rest of us that we're "stuck" with traditional materials.

      Spider silk is one of the strongest materials around. With an equivalent diameter, it beats out steel, carbon fiber and other materials that are used in construction.

      The only problem is that spider silk is extremely hard to come by - spiders don't produce much of it, and definitely not enough to be of practical use right now.

      There's a ton of work in researching ways to get more production ready volumes of the stuff. Synthetic silk, genetically modified silkworms (used for making regular silk), etc.

      It'll be too expensive for clothing, but as a cloth for composites, it's definitely got appeal.

  7. Potentially fascinating only,.. by AbRASiON · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What are the capabilities of this silk? How is it superior to regular silk? I see no real facts just that it's made of spider silk and took a while? It would take me a while to fasion a life size bridge out of Lego - it doesn't mean it would be stronger than a real bridge.

    ?

    1. Re:Potentially fascinating only,.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

    2. Re:Potentially fascinating only,.. by spectrokid · · Score: 5, Informative

      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

    3. Re:Potentially fascinating only,.. by MrKaos · · Score: 3, Funny

      What are the capabilities of this silk? How is it superior to regular silk? I see no real facts just that it's made of spider silk and took a while? It would take me a while to fasion a life size bridge out of Lego - it doesn't mean it would be stronger than a real bridge.

      ?

      But consider that a spider's web isn't lego so the real question is whether a bridge made from spiders silk would be stronger than a bridge made from lego? And if you had lego made from spiders silk, fashioned into a lego mindstorm robotic spider, would it make even stronger spidersilk lego blocks?

      That why they have spiderman not legoman -- duuuuh. Lego doesn't have a spidey sense.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  8. Washington Monument by Bueller_007 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Washington Monument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      when the Hallâ"Héroult process was discovered.

      Gezundheit.

  9. Spider silk isn't sticky by Moraelin · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.
    1. Re:Spider silk isn't sticky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually most spiders produce something like 5-7 different kinds of silk protein, with a separate organ for producing each. The strongest being dragline silk, which makes the structural part of the traditional bug-catching web and earns the "stronger than steel" reputation. The "glue" is actually another type of silk, which I believe is typically combined with *yet another* kind of silk to produce the actual bug-catching part of the web. Fascinating stuff, I wish I had a link to the recent TED talk on it.

      As an interesting side note, spider silk gets many of it's properties from the intricate structure imbued by their sophisticated spinnerets. Even if the recent silkworm gene-tweaking experiments managed to hit 100% spider-silk protein instead of 20%, the silk would still be significantly weaker since the silkworm's "extrusion nozzle" can only create a much cruder fiber.

  10. A cape? by RoccamOccam · · Score: 4, Funny

    No capes! -- Edna Mode

  11. Re:Arachnaphobia by michelcolman · · Score: 2

    But if the silk is made by a caterpillar, you're OK with it? Not creepy? (Try to imagine the crawling caterpillar producing the thread)

  12. Re:Hey... by Culture20 · · Score: 2

    Spiderman doesn't wear a CAPE!

    Not true. Spiderman 2099 (canon) wears a web-capelet, and Spiderman Unlimited has a web cape. http://dma9fall07b.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/spiderman_unlimited.png