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silk

11/30/2018 / By Edsel Cook

An engineering feat: Different types of silk in a spider web allow it to effectively capture prey

To human eyes, a spiderweb looks beautiful yet delicate. However, the strands are tough enough to survive contact with much larger animals. At the same time, they are also small enough to evade the notice of the prey that the web is intended to reveal and ensnare. Intrigued by this duality, a group of researchers […]

10/30/2018 / By Edsel Cook

New biosynthetic spider silk behaves like the real thing … and scientists say they’re about to make it even stronger

There are very few things in nature that are stronger and tougher than the silk that makes up spiderwebs. An article in Science Daily stated that Washington-based researchers have not only managed to biologically synthesize a version of spider silk, they also know how to improve it even further. In its natural form, spider silk […]

07/24/2018 / By Edsel Cook

“Air-con” clothes? Scientists develop cooling fabric inspired by the comet moth

Silkworms may have a new competitor when it comes to producing refreshingly cool and bright-looking silk fabrics. The fibers spun by wild Madagascar comet moths look much more vivid and feel much cooler on the skin. An article in Newswise reports that research engineers have created artificial materials based on these fibers to replicate their cooling […]

06/08/2018 / By Edsel Cook

Silk hybrid material can attack bacteria when illuminated by a green light

Indiana and Korean researchers have found a way to fuse a far-red fluorescent protein into silk. When exposed to green light, the resulting material will release molecules that kill bacteria and other dangerous pathogens, according to a NanoWerk article. Touted to be all-natural by its creators, the new biomaterial offers an alternative way to sterilize pathogens. […]

05/29/2018 / By Frances Bloomfield

Silk fibers may become the secret ingredient in the next round of high tech natural “metamaterials”

Far from just being a luxurious clothing material, silk could have numerous applications in engineering and biomedicine. This was the conclusion that an international team of multi-disciplinary scientists came to in their study, published in Nature Communications. According to the investigators, the nano-architecture of silk makes it highly effective at causing “Anderson localization of light.” […]

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