Researchers tout progress in spinning artificial spider silk

We've seen plenty of attempts to mimic spiders in robot-form, but that's not the only bit of inspiration arising from our eight-legged friends, with a number of other researchers also doing their best to artificially replicate the way a spider spins silk. Now, according to the BBC, it seems that a team from the Technical University of Munich has made some significant progress on that front, which could one day lead to a new means of manufacturing strong but lightweight materials. Specifically, the team created a "device" consisting of three channels etched into a piece of glass, which allows for different combinations protein and salts to be mixed together and extruded as a fiber. They are quick to point out, however, that the resulting fiber is not of "particularly high quality," and that while it's a step forward, the whole idea is still "a very big puzzle and there are many pieces missing."

[Jordan @ Apr 29th 2008 6:11PM]

Spider-pig, spider-pig!

[Mr.Tech @ Apr 29th 2008 10:50PM]

It's weird but spider threads can transfer faster rates of data than fiber optics can. I think it's over 100,000 faster? "Correct me if I'm wrong"

[saunajunkie @ Apr 30th 2008 12:10AM]

@Mr. Tech

I'm not sure about that. fiber optics use light which, in a vacuum, has a speed of 299,792,458 m/s. If the fiber optics were made of some kind of glass with the refractive index (n) of 1.5. using the equation v=c/n, the resulting velocity would be 199,861,638.66. I don't know what the refractive index of spider silk is, but it can't be less than 1 (the speed of light). The silk its self couldn't transmit much faster, but if the attenuation (degradation of the signal) was lower, then there would be the need for less repeaters.

[eeeMan @ Apr 29th 2008 6:12PM]

I always fantasize about being spiderman because im so lazy. Its become an obsession. Yeah for this soon-to-be reality!

[Jarhead2012 @ Apr 29th 2008 6:16PM]

This could be extremely useful. Spiders' silk has the tensile strength of steel. This could be great for heavy lifting if we could find a way to produce the stuff in bulk.

[DB @ Apr 29th 2008 6:18PM]

all they had to do was make an artificial spider, thus artificial silk

[Jack Thompson @ Apr 29th 2008 9:51PM]

This was similar to my silly thought: have the researchers made progress in spinning silk like that of artificial spiders, or are they spinning artificial silk similar to that of real spiders? And if they are replicating silk spun by artificial spiders, how did they build those spiders if they didn't know how they were going to spin their silk?

[Kawaiipikachu @ Apr 29th 2008 7:18PM]

The guy who is the expert of these stuff must be the webmaster .

[dana @ Apr 29th 2008 8:49PM]

a few years ago the scots were cranking out baby cloned dwarf transgenetic spider goats that made spider silk in their milk and back then they said they'd solved the problem of spinning. guess they didn't? if this is finally solved, this is huge, architecture, civil engineering, aeronautics, not to mention bullet proof TShirts and underwear...

[Mark @ Apr 29th 2008 8:50PM]

Why does the image on the left look like somebody just zoomed in on the center of a USB symbol?

[McFly @ Apr 30th 2008 12:39AM]

i guess that's the etched glass where the chemicals combine

[McFly @ Apr 30th 2008 12:51AM]

you're an embarrasment to italians

[DarkLightConnection Unbanned @ Apr 30th 2008 3:37AM]

"... penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis..."

That's what you will get shoved up your a$$ if you do that again

[Katalistic @ Apr 30th 2008 10:41AM]

This is old news. Not sure where but somewhere they added a very small portion of spider DNA into the DNA of a goat, and by doing so the milk from the goat contained the protein needed to make spider silk, but of course, actually creating is the hard part.