Posted on 10/12/2024 6:12:17 PM PDT by Red Badger
It’s straight out of a comic book: a shot of liquid silk quickly hardens into a sticky, strong fiber that can lift objects 80 times heavier. Sound familiar? Researchers have described the Spider-Man-inspired tech in a new study.
A newly-created web-like material will make many people who read comics as kids (or adults) very happy. Spider-Man is officially a step closer to existing in real life. Sure, we’re not at the swinging-from-building-to-building stage yet, but it feels like it’s not too far off.
In a new study, a team of researchers from Tufts University’s Silklab, whose goal is to reimagine natural materials as ‘living materials,’ has created the first web-slinging technology in which a fluid material shot from a needle almost immediately solidifies – and is strong enough to adhere to and pick up objects.
“As scientists and engineers, we navigate the boundary between imagination and practice,” said Fiorenzo Omenetto, professor of engineering at Tufts, director of the Silklab and the study’s co-corresponding author. “We can be inspired by nature. We can be inspired by comics and science fiction. In this case, we wanted to reverse engineer our silk material to behave the way nature originally designed it, and comic book writers imagined it.”
The researchers’ sticky fibers come from silk moth cocoons, which are broken down into their fibroin protein building blocks by boiling them in solution. The solution can then be shot out – extruded – through narrow bore needles to form a stream that, thanks to the right additives, solidifies when it’s exposed to air. Why moths and not spiders? Well, silk from the silk moth (Bombyx mori) has similar properties to spiders’ silk but with less structural complexity, and the raw materials are easier to come by.
(Excerpt) Read more at newatlas.com ...
Application?
Riot control.............
Pretty much anything we can imagine.
Kinda like that gum adhesive a 3M engineer came up with and made infamous for Post-e-notes and mailers.
Sounds like another possible adhesive glue
Researchers have been playing with spider silk since at least the early’90s when I was in graduate school.
Problem is not making the protein, it’s spinning it into a fiber.
Canadians even expressed the protein in goat milk almost 35 years ago or so.
“Riot control”
My very first thought, too.
80 times their own weight is pretty lame when you think of it.
Give a couple spray bottles of it to the kids on Christmas. Hilarity will ensue.
emergency rescue/stabilizing of people/vehicles in precarious situations was my first thought.
So maybe a pound and a half to pick up an attractive woman?
I have a tow rope that beats that by many multiples...
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