Genetically Engineered Silkworms Spin Spider Silk 188
disco_tracy writes "Silkworms have been modified to produce spider silk, creating a fabric that could be used in everything from bulletproof clothing to artificial tendons." For some reason, this is far less revolting to me than the idea of spider silk being milked out of goats.
A few more techs to go for Silksteel (Score:4, Interesting)
Some of the best (sometimes prophetic) fictional quotes ever.
Re:Cool (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the most cutting edge technology in the world..
For this specific case, I reckon qualifying this as the "best-protection-against-cutting-edges technology" would apply.
Re:Cool (Score:3, Interesting)
No. That is an incorrect analogy. I did not say I was not interested in GMO, in fact, I explicitly stated that I was interested. What I was responding to was a question of why somebody could be critical of GMO technology. There is a difference between criticism and disinterest.
You also seem to be claiming that I am willing to completely write-off and demonize a technology simply because some people have done a bad thing with it. Not true. Once again, my post was clear about that.
GMO is, to me, a clearly abused technology in the hands of dangerous people with questionable motives.
Stronger.. soon.. but stronger isnt the only point (Score:3, Interesting)
Opening cocoons (Score:5, Interesting)
FEH (Score:5, Interesting)
I am tired of the ridiculous "ten times stronger than Kevlar" or "ten times stronger than steel" and such garbage.
For the record: Kevlar is not particularly strong, compared to other high-end materials. What it is though, is ductile - that is, absorbs a nice amount of energy while being plastically deformed. Spider silk does this even better.
Steel can be had in strengths that vary between as low as 200 MPa (bad cast iron) to 3000 MPa (piano wire).
Kevlar is somewhere at 800 MPa or so - stronger than regular construction steel (235-420 MPa) but weaker than hardened sheet steel (900-1300 MPa).
The strongest material you may encounter outside of a laboratory is glass fiber, which can reach strengths of up to 5000 MPa.
Carbon fiber is weaker (~2000 MPa) than glass fiber, but it is more rigid - which is the sought after property most of the time.
Titanium, while having some nice properties, isn't incredibly strong either - around 1000 MPa at best.
Even when considering density, steel usually holds its own quite well - especially when designing things that are supposed to have a certain rigidity, where steel really shines - and while exotic materials may have advantages they are never along the line of "ten times", more like "two times" at best.
I'm a mechanical design engineer and I am really not amused when people show me their titanium golf clubs and claim that it is ten times stronger than steel an cost a hundred times more than gold, or other preposterous claims like that. Titanium is $100/kg, tops.
Re:FEH (Score:5, Interesting)
Similar thing with compressed gas cylinders (specifically scuba tanks). The wall thickness is *much* thinner for a steel tank than an aluminum one of similar pressures, so for the same mass of air and you can get away with a smaller tank and/or lower pressure. The resulting vessels end up being very close to the same mass despite aluminum's on-paper advantage in strength-to-weight ratio, which is killed by the maximum outer diameter that people are comfortable with handling.
I'm still trying to figure out why steel scuba tanks cost *more* than aluminum ones, though, looking at the spot prices for each of those metals.
Re:Cool (Score:5, Interesting)
Studies have also shown a clear correlation between making wild claims and citing sources. The correlation is negative.
Re:FEH (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cool (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cool (Score:2, Interesting)
This particular line of thinking is covered very well in the book titled "The Windup Girl", essentially covering mega-corporations producing diseases to kill off their opponents engineered grain, and vice-versa. Very good read indeed.