Revealed: Source Of Spider Silk's Extreme Strength
Wednesday, August 17, 2011 - 12:31
in Physics & Chemistry
What is five times the tensile strength of steel and the best currently available synthetic fibers? If you read the title you already know. Spider thread is a fascinating and often-studied material but no one has managed to produce it on an industrial scale. Scientists of the TU Muenchen (TUM) and the Universitaet Bayreuth (UBT) say they have now succeeded in discovering another secret of silk proteins and the mechanism that imparts spider silk with its strength. How do spiders manage to first store the silk proteins in the silk gland and to then assemble them in the spinning passage in a split second to form threads with these extraordinary characteristics? And what exactly gives the threads their tremendous tensile strength? read more