Artificial Skin Made From Spider Silk 49
Tissue engineer Hanna Wendt has released a study about using spider silk to create artificial skin. The study found that "spider silks display excellent mechanical features that even rival man-made, high-tech fibers," but didn't mention anything about patients gaining the ability to climb walls or sense impending danger. From the article: "Despite being impressed by how human cells responded to spider silk, Wendt thinks the use of synthetic fibers must be considered, especially since harvesting large amounts of spider silk is not practical."
Impracticality (Score:1)
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Can we please set up an IPO for this? I'm game!
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It'll never hit mainstream, it's being suppressed by the silk industry to keep prices high.
Just like the coal and oil industry and water reactors. Our energy needs could be a thing of the past just by creating a running water loop with a pump, and power that pump with a water wheel running off the water loop.
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The linked article is for a game.
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Yeah, I know. http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Water_reactor#Dwarven_Water_Reactor [magmawiki.com]
You do know you're only supposed to point out jokes wooshing over other people's heads, not your own.
Whooooosh (nt) (Score:2)
NT dammit
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Spidergoat, spidergoat, does whatever a spidergoat does...
That all depends... (Score:3)
on how many spiders you got, mate.
Now, I'm willing to make a deal on this lot. Something to get you "over the hump", shall we say.
When I tell you, I think you'll like my price.
There's more where I got them from. So be a good boy: go and tell your little friends about it, right?
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You don't need spiders, you just need goats...
http://www.physorg.com/news194539934.html [physorg.com]
Doesn't work. (Score:2)
Getting close (Score:2, Funny)
Now if you just made the silk radioactive.....
Lots O' Silk... (Score:3)
Same problem as every other spider silk use (Score:3)
Not exactly "made from" spider silk (Score:4, Informative)
It's actually grown on spider silk, much like culture grown on a petri dish. They need a suitable substrate to grow it on, but they cultured the skin itself from actual human skin cells.
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I can see the press release now (Score:2)
"Have you ever had that feeling like spiders were crawling all over your skin? Well, modern science has just developed this new artificial skin..."
Spidey Sense (Score:1)
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Bigger spiders? (Score:2)
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Precedent Re:Bigger spiders? (Score:2)
More direct sources (Score:1)
Nephila has been used to make cloth:
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/spidersilk/ [amnh.org]
Here is the original article:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0021833 [plosone.org]
spider goat (Score:2)
... since harvesting large amounts of spider silk is not practical.
No problem, just cross-breed spiders with goats to make a goat that can be milked for silk.
Or you could just buy one pre-bred. ISTR Nexia selling theirs.
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I actually bought a lot of stock in Nexia Biotechnologies when it used to be publicly traded. However, most of their IP got sold to I believe was a Virginia based company. It was the spider goat program that made me invest.
They had a grand plan to make genetically modified crops that grew the silk protein in their leaves. You would harvest them, grind them, and extract the proteins.
However, the problem with both the goats and crops was how to spin the proteins into fibers. That is very costly. Much bigger
"harvesting large amounts not practical..."? (Score:2)
I distinctly recall reading several articles (probably about 10 years ago?) saying how scientists were able to generate large quantities of spider silk ["synthetic" spider silk? call it whatever you want...] by genetically altering cows and just milking them. The silk could then be extracted from the cow milk.
After 10 years, no one has tried to improve on this extraction process? Kinda baffling that they would even start down that path if they weren't really going to follow up on it...
I've got you under my skin... (Score:2)
Arrrggg! My Morgellon's is flaring up.
It's all fine ... (Score:2)
excellent mechanical features (Score:1)
"spider silks display excellent mechanical features"
So does that mean I can replace my skin with this new skin and be impervious to being cut?
WTB Spider silk! (Score:1)
PLz tell meh wher ei can phArM spider silks, so i can get some phat lewt at the action house!!!!!
Prior art? (Score:2)
There is this old folk-remedy of putting a sider web on an open wound to make it heal faster.
Heard this one from Grandma, if I could only find a written source..
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Arachnicillin [psu.edu]
"I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good master cobweb... If I cut my finger, I shall make bold of you."
- The character Bottom in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Thanks!
That is amazing. I read A Midsummer Night's Dream but I must have missed the cob web..
Use Spider Goats for Quantity (Score:2)
C'mon, has everyone forgotten about Spider [bbc.co.uk] Goats [physorg.com]? The progress has appeared slow (those articles are a decade apart), but that's possibly due to the more-military-than-civilian applications thus far.
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Not everybody, which is why I checked before working too hard on a joke about not gaining the power to climb walls and squirt webs, but instead to smell capricious and fuck anything that moves and some things that don't move.
Still has movie potential.
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Farming spiders: (Score:2)
Spider Silk from Transgenic Goats (Score:2)
This research was being done by a company called "Nexia Technologies", which unfortunately went bankrupt. One might ask what happened to the g