Natural Kevlar
Something cool from the Natural History Museum that I did not post last time:
This piece of cloth is the only one of its kind in the world. It is woven from the silk collected from one million golden orb spiders on the island of Madagascar. That’s right. Spider silk. The project was begun by Simon Peers after he read about a device Jacob Paul Camboué invented in the nineteenth century for milking spiders. Now, what I wonder is why Camboué felt that spider silk was the way to go in textile creation. He created a set of bed hanging shown at the Paris Exposition in 1898. I remain unsure that the immense effort it took to collect the silk justified the 19th century demand but there you go. Simon Peters and his associate Nicholas Godley created this cloth with dozens of spider handlers as well as volunteers who would collect wild spiders to be milked (the spiders were returned unharmed to the wild after their silk was stolen). While Camboué went into full textile production Peers and Godley created this cloth mostly to prove it cold be done.
Spider silk is an amazing substance that is very hard to create artificially. The silk is produced as a protein liquid that is extruded into a solid by the spider. Which is totally awesome. The silk has a strength similar to steel or kevlar. Which means that this tablecloth is bulletproof. Imagine the golden super suit you could make out of this stuff. (However, the force of the bullet would still deal a deadly impact. All your bits would be in the same place though.) Scientists have been trying to make spider silk artificially for some time now, but inserting the silk making genes into bacteria and cows and goats. But it hasn’t really worked out as of yet. Large scale spider farming is also something of a pipe dream. Unlike silkworms spiders have a tendency to eat each other when they are kept in close captivity. I hope science gets it together though. I want the soldiers and tanks of the future to be outfitted with golden spider armor. Just think of how fantastic they would look.
Now we know what Spiderman will be doing in his old age. Knitting spider armor from his web sacs (if you are in the ‘he produces his own web school’ that is). He could make all kinds of money supplying armor to super secret special ops teams. Even if he doesn’t produce his own, he would be rolling in it if he started producing web commercially.
Tags: fun_stuff