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Spider Spins Electrically Charged Silk
sciencehabit writes In their quest to make ultrastrong yet ultrasmall fibers, the polymer industry may soon take a lesson from Uloborus spiders. Uloborids are cribellate spiders, meaning that instead of spinning wet, sticky webs to catch their prey, they produce a fluffy, charged, wool-like silk. A paper published online today in Biology Letters details the process for the first time. It all starts with the silk-producing cribellar gland. In contrast with other spiders, whose silk comes out of the gland intact, scientists were surprised to discover that uloborids' silk is in a liquid state when it surfaces. As the spider yanks the silk from the duct, it solidifies into nanoscale filaments. This "violent hackling" has the effect of stretching and freezing the fibers into shape. It may even be responsible for increasing their strength, because filaments on the nanoscale become stronger as they are stretched. In order to endow the fibers with an electrostatic charge, the spider pulls them over a comblike plate located on its hind legs. The technique is not unlike the so-called hackling of flax stems over a metal brush in order to soften and prepare them for thread-spinning, but in the spider's case it also gives them a charge. The electrostatic fibers are thought to attract prey to the web in the same way a towel pulled from the dryer is able to attract stray socks.
Now I know where all my socks went.
Am I the only one who didn't know that a hackle is a type of fiber comb?
This is what happens when all eight little spider legs run in concert across the shag carpet, sock-footed, in December.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
This arachnid truly is the gecko of the bug world.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
I learned something today. When I lose a sock in the dryer, it's because a spider ate it.
I for one welcome our nano-fiber creating, electricity producing arachnid overlords!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Would be interesting to see if the web simulates the charge of a flower.
My D&D group will be encountering electrified spiderwebs shortly.
Thanks nature!
I thought the point of the charge was to make the "wooly" side-fibers of the strands wrap around the prey's limbs and/or the microscopic irregularities in the exoskeleton, tangling to it. "Tying" the fibers to the prey would have a similar binding effect to gluing them to it, without the need for glue, and lots of little fibers could make a very strong attachment.
(Stretching fibers made of long chains makes them stronger by aligning the chains along the direction of the stretch.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Stupid analogies. Feels like I'm watching a History Channel original documentary.
I get the feeling we're witnessing the beginnings of a superhero origin story.
Mix in a little gene-splicing, some radiation and a brilliant but shy lab assistant who's working late one night. Next thing you know, Manhattan is in shambles.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Never use a softener for towels. It makes them hydrophobic.
-- Cheers!
It's a sock's only protection against its natural enemy, the 'eater of socks' herbivore, known to live beside washing machines. Zoologists are undecided on how this affects the life cycle of a dryer.
Regards to 'Hogfather'.
We need to adapt this energy generation to sweater puppets. This will end the nuclear debates once and for all.
The Admin and the Engineer
Spider silk is amazing stuff. Stronger than steel, tougher than kevlar, highly elastic, strong or light, sticky or dry as the need arises, instantly manufactured on demand, and even recyclable (some spiders eat their own webs to recycle the valuable proteins). An orb weaver typically has enough raw material in it's body to create three complete webs.
I recently saw a researcher demonstrating the property of a spitting spider's webs. The spitting spider, as it's name implies, actually spits a spray of sticky web at it's victim with silk-jets that vibrate back and forth at an astounding speed to create a wide spray pattern. As the web silk dries, it contracts as well, helping to bind the victim in a silk spray straightjacket.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
The article states that Uloborus plumipes is the only known species of spider to exploit dry electostatics, all of the others spin damp 'sticky glue' webs (even though the uluborid web fluid is less viscous and remains wet outside the body until it is hackled). The linked paper has several micrographs of the spider's spinner gland (with curious stalks that resemble electrical insulators) but surprisingly no diagrams of the uluborid hackling pods (note that it is also the only spider that lacks venom glands)
Are there any other creatures with similar electrostatic generation capabilities? Although electrostatic phenomena are often seen in nature, it seems remarkable that this capability could have evolved through natural selection. The paper doesn't shed much light on this, except for some hand-waving:
"...it is obvious that Uloborus is able to spin nano-scale filaments of great length and it may be assumed that the animal also somehow manages to electrostatically charge them. "
IMHO it somehow suggests intelligent design.
the name of Dave Lister's long-lost brother
Annoying how top comments are all stupid jokes, so I'll hijack it. It's already known that âoeBallooningâ Spiders Use Electrostatic Forces To Generate Lift
If the spider charges its silk one way, won't it pick up the opposite charge?
I wouldn't want some nasty spider attracting MY socks, I wanna tell ya!