Human-Made Spider Silk: Laboratory Spidermen Engineer Synthetic Fabric

Weaving a web is not a simple chore. Spiders devote their whole lives to the labor of trying to perfect their craftsmanship of web weaving. Of course, these insects have been naturally designed to possess both the skills and the materials necessary for their job.

Webs created by spiders are both elegant and durable. While everyday experience has led us to believe that spider webs are nothing more than flimsy nuisances, easily destroyed with a wave of the hand, some scientists realize that spider webs are actually terrific feats of engineering. The silk that they are made of is a fiber of such quality that it has yet to be matched by any man-made equivalents.

Can you believe that a silk handkerchief is actually strong enough to stop a bullet fired at close range? During the times of Wyatt Earp, a surgeon practicing in the town of Tombstone actually witnessed a gun battle only a few feet away, and saw how a silk handkerchief worked like a miniature bullet-proof vest.

The surgeon, Dr. George Emery Goodfellow, examined the victim of the battle after a gunshot blast had sent a bullet to his heart. Miraculously, although the bullet penetrated his clothing and broke his bones, no blood was spilled.

The strands of a spider web are actually so strong that if they were enlarged to be as thick as a pencil, they would have the power to stop a jet plane, according to Time For Kids. Unbelievable? Just place this fact back into context, and you'll see that it's plausible.

Spider webs routinely catch a wide variety of garden creatures: horseflies, dragonflies, bumblebees, and even birds get trapped everyday in the sticky silk string of these webs. Proportionally, birds stuck in webs of regular size are on par with planes stuck in an enlarged web.

With our sophisticated technology, it seems that humanity would long ago have outdistanced mere spiders in its ability to produce silk. However, this is not so. Only recently have humans been able to engineer quality synthetic silk that is cost-efficient.

In everyday contexts, this synthetic silk may prove useful, such as in the production of more sturdy fabrics and even in the construction of earthquake-resistant buildings and bridges.

SpiderMan may have had to hang upside down and shoot his spider silk willy-nilly around the city to combat crime, but today's engineers hardly need to go to such drastic measures.

They prove that by taking the time to observe and learn from these tiny creatures crawling amongst us everyday, our standard of living can be improved slowly but surely.

Sources: 1.) "The Gunfighter's Surgeon," by Cecilia Rasmussen. Wooster Magazine, Winter 2005. http://www.wooster.edu/magazine/winter2005/gunfighters_surgeon.php
2.) "A New Spin on Spider Silk." Time For Kids Magazines, October 31, 1997 Vol.3 No.7. http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/magazines/story/0,6277,92493,00.html