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Note that this is another difference between we human beings and the rest of the animals. Yes, non-human animals can take advantage of other animals' chemical f

Note that this is another difference between we human beings and the rest of the animals. Yes, non-human animals can take advantage of other animals' chemical factories (ants' use of aphids' sugar excretions come to my mind), but only we human beings can use our abstract conceptual thinking ability and scientific process to discover the nature of nature's chemistry and then put that knowledge to use. After my first-glance gist of the article, I've been eagerly awaiting mass-produced spider silk for quite some time. I wonder if it will be suitable for usage as thread? Will it be waterproof? Will it have that wonderful flexibility and strength per mass that has been envisioned?

smt88 2y ago
I first read about industrial use of spider silk literally 25 years ago in Discover Magazine. I'm going to assume it's just never going to make economic sense.
- wellix 2y ago
  Could you elaborate on why you think so?
  - evoke4908 2y ago
    It's been 25 years.
AnotherGoodName 2y ago
To give some humility, we've been around for hundreds of thousands of years as a species and for most of that time we could not have done what you've stated above. Farming, cities, animal husbandry, etc. are very very new for homo sapiens. You really can't use "thing humans do in modern times" as an indicator of the superiority of humans. For a start no individual human could do something like build an industrial process for exploitation anymore than an individual termite could build a city since no individual has all the knowledge required nor could they build that knowledge from scratch. If all it took was a singular individual and not a collective we would have achieved this much sooner in our history. Your aphid example is much closer to how humanity operates than you give it credit.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  One with no humility has no humility to give. Anyone who starts a sentence with "You really can't use" is preaching from atop their perch of various sh_ts, horsesh_t and bullsh_t, especially. Get over youself.
- kiba 2y ago
  That is absolutely cool and amazing that we can do that though. Being able to build on the works of others I think is way more metal than having a single individual or a small group of individuals doing it.
scythe 2y ago
The problem with spider silk is that it isn't just a chemical. We can make spider silk. There are plenty of papers where the spider silk proteins are produced by bacteria and spun into a fiber. The problem is that this fiber basically behaves like regular silk. Spider silk is partially crystallized and partially amorphous in a semi-disordered pattern that maximizes the toughness of the finished product. The way the silk is slowly concentrated out of solution during spinning in the spinneret is crucial to obtaining the desired properties. There have been attempts to replicate this process, e.g.: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/anie.200803341 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/anie.2008033... However, a scalable design is incredibly difficult to achieve. Frankly, I'd be happy if we could just make regular silk cheaper than the worm fiber.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  That's an all-time great comment. Thank you very much. Yeah, it makes sense that, because Nature wastes nothing, the entire system is required to produce that wonder material. Our focusing just on the chemical structure of what is produced in its "glands" (?) is indicative of our having only a shallow grasp of the intricacies of our world, especially of its life. Nature grows ever more wondrous the more we learn about it.
PittleyDunkin 2y ago
> but only we human beings can use our abstract conceptual thinking ability and scientific process to discover the nature of nature's chemistry and then put that knowledge to use. I heavily doubt we needed this to domesticate animals. What is the possible value of projecting 19th century concepts onto prehistory?

smt88 2y ago

I first read about industrial use of spider silk literally 25 years ago in Discover Magazine. I'm going to assume it's just never going to make economic sense.

wellix 2y ago
Could you elaborate on why you think so?
- evoke4908 2y ago
  It's been 25 years.

AnotherGoodName 2y ago

To give some humility, we've been around for hundreds of thousands of years as a species and for most of that time we could not have done what you've stated above. Farming, cities, animal husbandry, etc. are very very new for homo sapiens. You really can't use "thing humans do in modern times" as an indicator of the superiority of humans. For a start no individual human could do something like build an industrial process for exploitation anymore than an individual termite could build a city since no individual has all the knowledge required nor could they build that knowledge from scratch. If all it took was a singular individual and not a collective we would have achieved this much sooner in our history. Your aphid example is much closer to how humanity operates than you give it credit.

MrMcCall 2y ago
One with no humility has no humility to give. Anyone who starts a sentence with "You really can't use" is preaching from atop their perch of various sh_ts, horsesh_t and bullsh_t, especially. Get over youself.
kiba 2y ago
That is absolutely cool and amazing that we can do that though. Being able to build on the works of others I think is way more metal than having a single individual or a small group of individuals doing it.

scythe 2y ago

The problem with spider silk is that it isn't just a chemical. We can make spider silk. There are plenty of papers where the spider silk proteins are produced by bacteria and spun into a fiber. The problem is that this fiber basically behaves like regular silk. Spider silk is partially crystallized and partially amorphous in a semi-disordered pattern that maximizes the toughness of the finished product. The way the silk is slowly concentrated out of solution during spinning in the spinneret is crucial to obtaining the desired properties. There have been attempts to replicate this process, e.g.: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/anie.200803341 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/anie.2008033... However, a scalable design is incredibly difficult to achieve. Frankly, I'd be happy if we could just make regular silk cheaper than the worm fiber.

MrMcCall 2y ago
That's an all-time great comment. Thank you very much. Yeah, it makes sense that, because Nature wastes nothing, the entire system is required to produce that wonder material. Our focusing just on the chemical structure of what is produced in its "glands" (?) is indicative of our having only a shallow grasp of the intricacies of our world, especially of its life. Nature grows ever more wondrous the more we learn about it.

PittleyDunkin 2y ago

> but only we human beings can use our abstract conceptual thinking ability and scientific process to discover the nature of nature's chemistry and then put that knowledge to use. I heavily doubt we needed this to domesticate animals. What is the possible value of projecting 19th century concepts onto prehistory?