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This fizzled because bulk producing the protein is pointless when it still needs to be spun. I remember being amazed at their bizarre hubris in expecting that j
by carrolldunham 7y ago
This fizzled because bulk producing the protein is pointless when it still needs to be spun. I remember being amazed at their bizarre hubris in expecting that just pressing the goop through a small hole would create a silk strand
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ipsum2 7y agoThe photo in the article has the caption "These reels contain "synthetic" spider silk fibers spun from the spider silk proteins produced by Saanen goats. Photo © Lewis Lab at Utah State University.". What is the difficulty with spinning?
- carrolldunham 7y agoLooking into it a bit, they have a spinning machine and my best guess is they use that to spin (in the crude, wool sense not the molecular-level spinneret sense) some of, I guess their extruded goop, into a thread. You can assume from the vague wording, obtuseness in every article and lack of mention of any mechanical properties, that this thread doesn't have anywhere near the strength of spider-spun spider silk.
- Gravityloss 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinneret https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinneret https://web.archive.org/web/20161220082737/http://www.astrographics.com/GalleryPrintsIndex/GP2017.html https://web.archive.org/web/20161220082737/http://www.astrog... At least I didn't know that spiders do molecular operations not only when generating the silk substance but assembling it to strand.