Like many kids Spider Man was one of my childhood Heroes ! Along with Tarzan, and John Wayne, and later on Dirty Harry.

Anyway something about this Spider Man though... Here's an extract from an article:

"Spider silk is the strongest natural fiber known. The most appealing type is the "dragline" that spiders use to move about and snag prey. Dragline silk -- what Peter Parker employs while swinging through the streets (that would be Spider Man?) -- is six times stronger than steel and can be stretched to 50 percent of its length before it breaks.

Reproducing dragline silk has been called the Holy Grail of materials science. In 2002, scientists at Nexia Biotechnologies produced spider silk proteins in cells from a mammal. The proteins were then spun into silky threads...."

Read more at http://www.livescience.com/technology/041129_spider_man.html
I still enjoy the Spider Man movies..

Replying to [smarco]:

Thanks for that interesting post! Though as you posted it in the fun forum (also known as "nut house"), my first thought was, "Spider man shouldn't have second thoughts... in mid air! That's not good!"

Replying to [smarco]:

Tried to contact you via TM. Do you regularly check your mail?

Replying to [germex]:

I had several choices where to post it. I thought it could fit in "Building Materials" nicely, or perhaps "Community".. but on second thoughts (mine, not the Spider Man!), with the title Spider Man which might seem ridiculous to some people, I decided to just post it in the "nut house".. After all I have no information on current progress on this fiber research. It was an article I happened to come across accidentally and decided to share with members.

By the way, 9/11 could have been dealt with more effectively if Spider Man was around..

Replying to [smarco]:

Is there a way to get updates on that research?

Replying to [smarco]:

Thanks for the article.

This is another case of Scientists learning from Nature. I saw in a documentary over television, the Aborigines of Australia use the spider web to fish. You have been in the Down Under and must have heard it.

One thing that amazes me is that spider who spun the web did not get trapped by itself. But in National Geography, there are spiders hunting spiders, trapping their own spicies and the Black Widow spider kills her mate after mating and ate him.

OO7

Thanks smarco for a most interesting information. Found ff recent updates on spider silk research on the web:

from Science Friday:

"When will dragline silk hit the market? The question is finding the right surrogate silk-maker. “We can take the silk gene and put it in another organism,” Ayoub explains. For instance, the gene can be inserted in a tomato plant and the tomato can be instructed to make the proteins in its seeds. Ayoub says: “Then we can use some kind of artificial spinning apparatus that mimics the spider to spin a fiber from that extracted protein.”

With the ingredients and their genetic blueprint now known, it may be possible to synthetically produce the proteins by inserting the genetic sequences into host organisms such as bacteria, plants or animals, she said. Once the pure proteins are harvested, a manufacturing challenge will be spinning them into silk fibers that have the same remarkable properties as spider spun silk. But several advances have recently been made in artificial spinning methods.

When spiders manufacture dragline silk, their silk glands produce a "gooey" slurry of the proteins needed, which are transported to the spinneret through a duct where the proteins interact and align to form the silk strands."

from Medical News Today:

"The production of artificial silk is not quite there yet," Hayashi said. "Now, with the full length genes known and as we learn more about theses two proteins, hopefully we will have a better shot at mimicking nature."

Cheers,
macs2005

Replying to [germex]:

Germex, have TM you the other day. I don't check/use TM much actually, as I try not to be tied up in front of the screen, thus my preference for email messages. Just in case the message didn't get thru' would you re-send your message indicating your email address please?

Thank you all for interesting updates on this topic

James007 - I've never heard of that material being used Down Under, perhaps I should be paying more attention, or could it be that it's a native secret. I'll stop by Down Under again one of these days on my way back from NZ.

macs2005 - It'd be interesting to know how this research develops further.

Replying to [smarco]:

All researchers are lip-tight about their work, and currently, there are two Bioscience laboratories who seem to make some headways on the dragline silk protein. Nexia and Du Pont Biochemical are two of the researchers who have some discoveries and yet to perfect them.

It is a natural wonder, a dragline the size of a garden hose can support a fully loaded Airbus hanging on it. It is 8 times the strength of steel by weight, and can stretch 40%. The Nephila clavipes species produce one of the strongest dragline, which is the scaffolding of the spider's web. There are about 34,000 species of spiders, some of them weave the Orb, a circular shape trap with radial threads of the web, where the dragline silk is used as the spokes of the web net. It is insoluble in water, diluted acid and base, can only be dissolved in 9 Mol Lithium Bromide and Concentrated Formic Acid. Silk soaked in water can shrink to less than half of its original length.

Historically, the web of the Black Widow was used to make the cross-hair of the anti-aircraft guns up to WWII. It is the silk that makes the bullet-proof vests worn by Policemen and soldiers.

Dick Moby

Replying to [smarco]:

Sent you another message. Let's see if you receive it this time.