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Spiders Spin 'Silk Dope' into Nature's Toughest Material(quantamagazine.org)
76 points by ibobev 1 day ago | 9 comments
[–] Ouman 16 hours ago
We've gotten very good at designing materials, but nature still has a few manufacturing tricks we haven't figured out
[–] rramadass 20 hours ago
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.

[–] jdw64 1 day ago
Would it be uneconomical to make clothes from spider silk? But I'm curious what kind of spider Spider Man's web comes from.
[–] dcminter 1 day ago
Define economical :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Spider_Silk_Cape

[–] the__alchemist 1 day ago
This article goes into it... Need 1e6 spiders in 1e6 boxes.
[–] Dylan16807 1 day ago
So it's probably 100-1000x as expensive as silk? That's doable.
[–] the__alchemist 19 hours ago
In addition to the sibling post, silkworms don't need individual living quarters.
[–] zardo 1 day ago
Silk worms make a cocoon, for a spider you would need individually "silk" each one every few days.
[–] jibalt 1 day ago
> what kind of spider Spider Man's web comes from

Look it up ... there isn't one.