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spider 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 […]

06/19/2018 / By Edsel Cook

Nano-sized cellulose fibers beat spider silk in being the strongest material on Earth

What is the strongest material on Earth? If you answered “spider silk,” you have just named the former champion, now demoted to second place. In a study published in ACS Nano, researchers reported that new nanoscale cellulose fibers have become the Superman of building materials. Many of our scientific advances pale in comparison to what nature has developed and […]

10/02/2017 / By Tracey Watson

Bionic spider silk: Researchers have developed a super strong “biocomposite” with the potential to revolutionize numerous industries

Spider webs are known to be among the strongest natural materials known to man. For example, the webs of a type of spider found in Papua New Guinea are so strong that fishermen use them as handheld fishing nets. Additionally, in 2010, scientists discovered that the web of a species of orb weaver in Madagascar […]

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