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Spider silk is a very versatile material whether you're a spider or a human being. It's been used to help ignite lasers, give crosshairs to microscopes and even catch fish in some parts of the world, but due to its strength and low-weight, it could have much more uses if only we could get enough of it. Because spiders love to eat each other, producing and acquiring masses of silk is very hard, but it may have just become much easier, as scientists have managed to develop a method for industrialising its production.
There has to be an easier way…
The process begins by engineering Ecoli bacteria to create the proteins found in spider silk, which are then freeze dried, which turns the proteins into a powder. When passed through water and alcohol while being spun, the proteins are elongated into strands, which look and behave very much like traditional spider silk.
At this stage the process is still quite hands on and doesn't produce large quantities of silk, but it's a promising start that if automated, could see large amounts of the previously-only-naturally-occurring material produced in a short period of time. If spider silk could be created on this sort of industrial scale, it could see uses in bullet proof vests, advanced forms of weather proof clothing, biodegradeable plastics, bandages and other surgical equipment or even artificial tendons. With this new method perhaps some of those will come to pass.
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KitGuru Says: If this turns out to be a viable process, it could also see Kevlar's 40+ year reign as the king of lightweight, strong fibres come to an end.
I can’t see this method being any faster than the spidergoat farms they have in the US, A spider goat must surely be able to produce more silk protein than bacteria can ! Or maybe that got shut down after the spidergoats started hunting the locals or something.
Thing is, it would be more cost efficient and easy to maintain a bacterial silkfarm than a spidergoat farm
fhgt . I see what you mean… Clarence `s blurb is terrific, on friday I bought a great new Dodge after having made $4460 this past 4 weeks and-just over, 10k this past month . without a doubt its the most-comfortable work Ive had .
I started this seven months/ago and almost straight away began to bring home at least $70, per/hr . over at this website HERE’S MORE DETAIL
The Spider goats were a good progress within biological science. Although there are many benefits with using bacteria instead, the main one being their ability to asexually reproduce. These bacteria will multiply fast therefore increasing the amount of produce. Bacteria is also favoured because they can use a larger range of food to provide energy and use less energy when carrying out their processes – Sometimes even waste products that would otherwise not be used. The production of Mycoprotein, it is done using Fusarium – a fungus. This process is a great example of how micro-organisms are very effective when producing an organic material. Sorry if that dragged, I don’t usually reply to comments.
Thanks for the reply, I guess i’m rather ignorant of such things. It’s fascinating though the areas science can delve in to, I love reading little articles like these.
Good point, and as Samuel pointed out to me it’d undoubtedly be more cost efficient feeding bacteria rather than spidergoats too.