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Topic: Spider silk

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	Access Excellence: Science Updates Archive
		Dragline silk is the fiber from which spiders make the scaffolding of their webs.
		Tirrell reports that the primary constituents of spider silk turn out to be the two simplest amino acids, glycine and alanine, and he notes that researchers at Cornell have recently discovered that the alignment of these amino acids is responsible for spider silk's incredible strength.
		Spider silk, for instance, could be made in the lab by taking an arachnid's genes and inserting them into bacteria to produce that insect's strong, durable thread.
	www.accessexcellence.org /WN/SU/spider.html (497 words)

	Spider Silk
		All spiders possess spinning glands and make silk, they use it for a safety dragline, to fly, for making a highly durable cocoon for their eggs, to line their homes, to trap their prey and to immobilise their victims.
		With all these things considered we learn that the tensile strength of spider silk under normal laboratory conditions is slightly less than steel if you compare it in terms of the threads diametre, but it is far greater than that of steel if you compare it in terms of the weight of the thread.
		Spiders that possess a cribellum are called 'Cribellate', as compared with the remaining spiders which are sometimes referred to as 'Ecribellate'.
	www.earthlife.net /chelicerata/silk.html (0 words)

	Finding Inspiration in Spider Silk Fibers
		Spider silk is an unusually strong, resilient, and elastic fiber protein that is only surpassed—in some of its properties—by synthetic high-performance fibers.
		Silk fibers are nearly as strong as the manmade materials, and have an unbeatable capacity for absorbing energy, also called resilience, which can be quantified by the area under the stress-strain curve measured in a tensile test.
		M.B. Hinman, J.A. Jones, and R.V. Lewis, “Synthetic Spider Silk: A Modular Fiber,” TIBTECH, 18 (2000), pp.
	www.tms.org /pubs/journals/JOM/0502/Elices-0502.html (0 words)

	Soon, spider-silk togs and mussel glue? \| csmonitor.com
		Spider's silk is one example of how advances in biotechnology and synthetic chemistry are fueling rapid growth in animal-based products.
		Spiders are high on the research agenda because they produce several useful things, including one of the strongest materials in the world.
		Spiders spin silk by secreting a fluid, fibrous protein similar to keratin, the same protein found in hair and horns.
	www.csmonitor.com /2004/0826/p13s01-stgn.html (0 words)

	Scientists spin first lab-made spider silk - gm-food - 18 January 2002 - New Scientist
		Knight also suggests that, in order to create a spider silk as good as the natural silk, it may be necessary to combine two different proteins that are used by spiders.
		Spider silk is one of the strongest and most flexible materials in the natural world, five times stronger than steel by weight.
		But spiders are too aggressive to be farmed and previous efforts to grow the silk from bacterial cultures have failed.
	www.newscientist.com /channel/health/gm-food/dn1807 (509 words)

	KidsBibleInfo.com \| Spider Silk (Site not responding. Last check: )
		The various silk glands secrete different kinds of silk, each of which may be used for a specific purpose such as parts of the web or the egg cocoon.
		It was once believed that spider silk could be woven into clothing, but this is not practical, because thousands of spiders would be needed to produce one pound of usable silk.
		Spider's silk is relatively strong, yet, when we consider the many, far greater forces in the world that can destroy it, we realize, as our text suggests, that it is frail indeed.
	www.kidsbibleinfo.com /stories/spider_silk.html (372 words)

	Spider Silk (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Spider silk is an extremely strong material and is on weight basis stronger than steel.
		The silk is produced by the silk glands in the form of a liquid with a molecular weight of 30.000.
		Depending of the type of silk that is to be made the spider mixes the fluid from the different glands and regulates the speed and volume of release.
	www.xs4all.nl /~ednieuw/Spiders/Info/spindraad.htm (493 words)

	Silk Biomechanics (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Much of the early research focused on the silk spun by silkworms for their cocoons (and used in the making of parachutes and pantaloons, as well as scarves and hankies) because these caterpillars can be easily farmed.
		Spider silk, however, turned out to be an even better material for warding off projectiles.
		Spiders produce other types of silk (to wrap prey, for example), but these two types have been the main focus of biomechanical research.
	biomechanics.bio.uci.edu /_html/nh_biomech/gotsilk/spider_silk.htm (948 words)

	World Almanac for Kids
		Spiders have eight walking legs, anterior appendages bearing fangs and poison glands, and specialized reproductive organs on the second appendages of the male; they commonly make extensive use of silk that they spin.
		Spider silk is a fibrous protein that is secreted as a fluid and forms a polymer, on being stretched, that is much stronger than steel and further resists breakage by its elasticity.
		Spiders have separate sexes, and the eggs have to be fertilized.
	www.worldalmanacforkids.com /explore/animals/spider.html (1196 words)

	C&EN: CRITTER CHEMISTRY - THE SILK ROAD
		Scientists have been studying spider silk for decades, attempting to understand how the nanometer-sized biodegradable threads can be stronger by weight than high-tensile steel and elastic enough to stretch up to 10 times their initial length.
		Unlike silk from silkworms, spiderwebs can't be harvested from large farms of cohabiting critters.
		"If you anesthetize the spider and tickle its spinerettes with a dissecting needle, it can spin out yards and yards of silk." She cautions, however, that while milking works for creating study samples, it is still far too tedious to use on a commercial scale and is only good for generating one type of silk.
	pubs.acs.org /cen/science/8124/8124spidersilk.html (839 words)

	NATURE. True Adventures of the Ultimate Spider-Hunter. Secrets of Spider Silk \| PBS
		If spider silk came out of a factory, it would be hailed as one of the greatest inventions of all time.
		Silk threads are manufactured in special glands and then extruded from "spinnerets," which control the thickness.
		This silk is five to six times stronger than steel and can be stretched up to 40 percent of its length without breaking.
	www.pbs.org /wnet/nature/spiderhunter/silk.html (607 words)

	Gene Sequence for Super Spider Silk Discovered \| LiveScience
		For example, spiders use dragline silk to create the scaffolding for their webs, but another type of silk, known as capture silk, is used to fill out the web.
		One of the strongest and most durable types of spider silk is produced only by sexually mature females and is used to construct protective cocoons for their eggs.
		Egg-case silk has to last a long time and therefore must be durable under a wide variety of conditions, from freezing to very high temperatures.
	www.livescience.com /animals/050805_spidersilk.html (597 words)

	Spider Silk Background Information (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Although the bite of a fl widow spider is serious, possibly causing severe pain, nausea, and mild paralysis of the diaphragm, rarely is it fatal.
		Spiders can usually move around on the silk that is not sticky, often referred to as the anchor silk, and can avoid the snare silk, which is used to capture insects.
		Although many people may think of spiders as "insects" (because in their mind an insect is any small, "crawly" thing that might bite), biologically spiders are considered to be in a class separate from insects.
	www.chemistry.org /portal/a/c/s/1/acsdisplay.html?DOC=education\curriculum\chemmatters\silk_0201.html (1839 words)

	Spider Silk: Ancient Ideas for New Biomaterials
		Spiders are unique because of the use of silks throughout their life span and their nearly total dependence on silk for their evolutionary success.
		Spider silks have been known to be composed predominantly of protein since the 1907 studies of Fischer.
		Mechanical testing has shown tubuliform silk to have a relatively high tensile strength with a fairly low elasticity, properties that are similar to the mechanical properties of minor ampullate silk.
	pubs.acs.org /cgi-bin/sample.cgi/chreay/2006/106/i09/html/cr010194g.html (6923 words)

	Scientists achieve self-assembly of spider silk fiber in insect cells
		However, unlike silkworms, spiders are territorial in nature and thus not subject to domestication and commercial growth in quantities.
		The spider spins its web from various types of fibers, including the fiber known as dragline silk, which is characterized by great strength and elasticity.
		Nevertheless, these fibers were identical in their diameter to that of real spider fiber and were found to be equal to -- and in certain aspects even exceed -- the chemical resistance quality of the spider-created fiber.
	www.eurekalert.org /pub_releases/2004-11/huoj-sas112304.php (769 words)

	Catalyst Online :: Teaching goats to make spider silk :: Cathy Chung
		Spiders have been around for 400 million years and have had that long to perfect their silk-making mechanisms.
		The isolated spider silk gene is then inserted into goat DNA in such a way that the spider silk protein is only made in the mammary glands of the animals.
		And silkworm silk is not nearly as strong as spider silk.
	www.carleton.ca /catalyst/2003/s2.html (1884 words)

	SPIDER SILK: STRESS-STRAIN CURVES AND YOUNG'S MODULUS
		Silk and collagen are both composed of proteins, while cellulose and chitin are composed of polysaccharides (sugars).
		Spider webs, which function in prey capture for many species, are made of silk, a well-studied example of a tensile material.
		The extensibility and tensile strength of spider silk in general, combined with its light weight, enable it to resist damage from wind and from being pulled by anchoring points of the web.
	www.tiem.utk.edu /~gross/bioed/bealsmodules/spider.html (840 words)

	Spider Silk
		Spider silk is a natural polypeptide, polymeric protein and is in the scleroprotein group which also encompasses collagen (in ligaments) and keratin (nails and hair).
		The elasticity of spider silk is due to glycine-rich regions where a sequence of five amino acids are continuously repeated.
		ure of spider silk is considered to be crystalline regions in an amorphous matrix.
	www.chm.bris.ac.uk /motm/spider/page3h.htm (523 words)

	Spider Silk
		Spider silk is also very elastic and capture silk (sticky silk for catching prey) remains unbroken after being stretched 2-4 times its original length.
		Spider silk is tougher, more elastic and more waterproof than silkworm silk so it could have a much wider range of applications.
		Spiders do not stick to their own web because only the central spiral part of the web is sticky, not the spokes.
	www.chm.bris.ac.uk /motm/spider/page2.htm (664 words)

	The Real Spider-Man \| LiveScience
		Spider silk is the strongest natural fiber known.
		Dragline silk -- what Peter Parker employs while swinging through the streets -- is six times stronger than steel and can be stretched to 50 percent of its length before it breaks.
		These are produced in a gland in the spider's abdomen, using the same amino acids that your body uses to produce skin and hair.
	www.livescience.com /technology/041129_spider_man.html (654 words)

	Some spider!
		Each variety of silk is biologically engineered by evolution to perform its task to perfection.
		Some of their silk genes have changed little over that time, indicating that they were a successful solution to the problem of spider survival.
		Silk genes have been stuck in bacteria, but the output of silk protein is...
	whyfiles.org /shorties/077spidersilk (681 words)

	Engineers probe spiders' polymer art - MIT News Office (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Spider silk is a protein solution that undergoes pronounced changes as part of the spinning process.
		Spiders don't actually spin ("spinning" refers to the age-old art of drawing out and twisting fibers to form thread); instead, they squirt out a thick gel of silk solution.
		As the silk gel flows from the gland through an S-shaped, tapered canal to the outside of the spider's body, the long protein molecules become aligned and the viscosity (or resistance to flow) drops by a factor of 500 or more.
	web.mit.edu /newsoffice/2006/spider.html (1075 words)

	Spider Silk
		As the silk lines lengthen, the wind tugs harder and harder on them, until finally the spiderling releases its hold on its platform, and the wind bears silk lines and spiderling to new territory -- perhaps just to the next bush, or maybe to the next county or state.
		Once a spider is outside its old exoskeleton, its new exoskeleton is soft, and the newly emerged spider in a matter of hours grows larger than it was before, like a sponge that has been under pressure suddenly being released.
		Once the spider reaches its new full size, its new exoskeleton hardens, and that's the end of the spider's growth until the next time the exoskeleton must be split and discarded.
	www.backyardnature.net /spidsilk.htm (1227 words)

	Spiders - Silk - the spider's success story
		Spiders use silk for many purposes - to protect their young, catch food, make homes and move around.
		The original spiders, represented today by the primitive, segmented, mesothelid spiders, had eight pairs of silk spinning organs or spinnerets placed under the middle of the abdomen (Mesothelae).
		In mygalomorph and araneomorph spiders the spinnerets have moved to the end of the abdomen (Opisthothelae).
	www.amonline.net.au /spiders/toolkit/silk (310 words)

	Spider Silk: Ancient Ideas, Great Future? - Medgadget - www.medgadget.com
		A review of research on spider silk concludes that scientists have largely overlooked such possible medical applications of this extraordinary natural material, which is stronger than steel.
		Depending on the spider species and other factors, these silks will contract to 50% or less of their original length in water.
		Suggestions are that it provides an advantage to the spider by tightening the web whenever the humidity is very high by contraction of the attachment lines and the framework of the web.
	www.medgadget.com /archives/2006/10/spider_silk_anc.html (0 words)

	ScienceDaily: Spider Silk: Could 'Webicillin' Beat Infections?
		Spiders and Ticks, Animals, Forensics, Infectious Diseases, Biology, Biotechnology
		The lore dates to the first century A.D. when spider webs were prized as wound dressings.
		He cites, for instance, animal studies concluding that spider silks do not induce an immune response -- which causes rejection of implants.
	www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2006/10/061009031730.htm (0 words)

	Spider Silk
		Dragline silk is stronger, per cross-sectional area, than steel, yet it can stretch to, and rebound from, 15 percent of its original length.
		They fed the spiders a special diet that included deuterated (or "heavy") alanine and collected the deute rium-labeled silk on a spindle with their homemade silking machine.
		Silk studies by the interdisciplinary team were supported by the National Science Foun dation and the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
	www.news.cornell.edu /Chronicle/96/1.18.96/spider.html (610 words)

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