51–60 of 84 posts
I don't know if it's a function of thickness, or if they've beaten these researchers to the punch, but black widow spiders spin by far the strongest thread I have ever encountered. There's never any doubt when I encounter a black widow web, and that's how I know to proceed with caution, when I'm working in my garage on the next Google haha.
Are you able to break their spidereb with your hands?
I just wrote this up myself. The results are remarkable, but the credit seems entirely due to the spiders. Well, not entirely, but the data is so limited! They only got a handful of spiders, from the lab's back yard essentially, and a bunch of them died from nanomaterial exposure, malnutrition, or both after 1 trial! Yet despite the bargain bin trappings, the results are so incredibly cool! The spiders just... incorp…
Goes to show that us humans aren't the best at making everything. Wish I thought of this when studying nanotechnology in grad school.
> exactly how the spiders incorporate carbon nanotubes and graphene flakes into their silk is not clear
Just when I'm full up on superhero themes it gets all interesting again.
The most interesting part of the article for me was: "Nobody has discovered an efficient way to harvest spider silk, although not for lack of trying. " I would love to know more about these attempts. Searching google brings up doesn't help much as the keywords "mine" and "web" can have a wholly different connotation.
Spider Wranglers Weave One-Of-A-Kind Tapestry http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1132233...
I just wrote this up myself. The results are remarkable, but the credit seems entirely due to the spiders. Well, not entirely, but the data is so limited! They only got a handful of spiders, from the lab's back yard essentially, and a bunch of them died from nanomaterial exposure, malnutrition, or both after 1 trial! Yet despite the bargain bin trappings, the results are so incredibly cool! The spiders just... incorp…
A guess at the mechanism: the silk protein selection algorithm is an accept-first filter, the silk ducts being somewhat like human mammary glands. Anything the spider isn't specifically pulling back into its own blood as needed would then end up as an impurity in the webbing. (Easy experiment to do in its own right, but from a quick search I can't find evidence to support or refute it.) Past that, the nanotubes just…
This reminds me of a story of dolphins, who apparently suffer a lot from mercury poisoning, mostly caused by the smog of unfiltered coal plants entering their ecosystem. One issue of mercury poisoning is that the body has no way to get rid of it - it gets stored in the fats, IIRC. Unless you're a mammalian mom. Then the body gets rid of mercury through your milk. Mercury is most lethal at the infant age. So in short, most dolphin mothers' firstborns die [0].
Anyway, perhaps the carbon fibers are actually toxic, and the only way the spiders can get rid of the material is through their silk?
[0] http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/02/11/revealing-cove-do...
The most interesting part of the article for me was: "Nobody has discovered an efficient way to harvest spider silk, although not for lack of trying. " I would love to know more about these attempts. Searching google brings up doesn't help much as the keywords "mine" and "web" can have a wholly different connotation.