79 points | by ibobev 5 days ago ago
11 comments
Also see Veritasium's excellent episode, Is Spider Web really stronger than Steel? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt4p2oalmRY
It features a company with a cool technique where Spider Silk DNA is inserted into Silkworm's DNA so you can easily farm them.
Would it be uneconomical to make clothes from spider silk? But I'm curious what kind of spider Spider Man's web comes from.
Define economical :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Spider_Silk_Cape
This article goes into it... Need 1e6 spiders in 1e6 boxes.
So it's probably 100-1000x as expensive as silk? That's doable.
Silk worms make a cocoon, for a spider you would need individually "silk" each one every few days.
You can use spider egg sacs but it seems directly from the spider is more efficient since you don't have to wait for them to make the sac
In addition to the sibling post, silkworms don't need individual living quarters.
> what kind of spider Spider Man's web comes from
Look it up ... there isn't one.
[dead]
We've gotten very good at designing materials, but nature still has a few manufacturing tricks we haven't figured out
Also see Veritasium's excellent episode, Is Spider Web really stronger than Steel? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt4p2oalmRY
It features a company with a cool technique where Spider Silk DNA is inserted into Silkworm's DNA so you can easily farm them.
Would it be uneconomical to make clothes from spider silk? But I'm curious what kind of spider Spider Man's web comes from.
Define economical :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Spider_Silk_Cape
This article goes into it... Need 1e6 spiders in 1e6 boxes.
So it's probably 100-1000x as expensive as silk? That's doable.
Silk worms make a cocoon, for a spider you would need individually "silk" each one every few days.
You can use spider egg sacs but it seems directly from the spider is more efficient since you don't have to wait for them to make the sac
In addition to the sibling post, silkworms don't need individual living quarters.
> what kind of spider Spider Man's web comes from
Look it up ... there isn't one.
[dead]
We've gotten very good at designing materials, but nature still has a few manufacturing tricks we haven't figured out