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All Articles Tagged As: spiders
 | Stanford researcher and her collaborators are the first to measure all of the elastic properties of an intact spider's web, drawing a remarkable picture of the behavior of one of nature's most intriguing structures. The work could lead to new "bio-inspired" materials that improve upon nature. ...> Full Article |
 | A study that combines experimental observations of spider webs with complex computer simulations has shown that web durability depends not only on silk strength, but on how overall web design compensates for damage and the response of individual strands to continuously varying stresses. ...> Full Article |
 | Spiders are very agile, and some can even jump. They owe this capability to their hydraulically operated limbs. Researchers have now designed a mobile robot modeled on the same principle that moves spider legs. Created using a 3-D printing process, this lightweight can explore terrain that is beyond human reach. ...> Full Article |
Human existence has always depended on harvesting from nature for food and shelter, but we now increasingly look to nature for technological ideas. Next week, spider silk expert Cheryl Hayashi will give a free public lecture at UC Riverside about technologies that borrow ideas from nature - those that feature in our lives today and what’s envisioned in the future. As a case study, Hayashi will talk about spiders and the efforts to replicate their silks.
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The arrays of fine adhesive hairs on the foot pads of many insects, lizards and spiders give them the ability to climb almost any natural surface. A new study found that the different forces required to peel away these adhesive hairs from surfaces are what allows beetles to adhere to diverse surfaces, thereby reducing the risk of detachment. The study is published online in the Springer journal Naturwissenschaften -- The Nature of Science.
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 | Imagine a material that is tougher than Kelvar or steel, yet remarkably flexible. It's something you can easily find in your attic or a lingerie store. It's as instantly recognizable today as it was to our early ancestors, yet we still aren't sure exactly how it's made. ...> Full Article |
Scientists from the Technische Universitaet Muenchen and the University of Bayreuth have unraveled a decisive step in nature's way of producing spider silk; with industrial partners, they are working toward biomimetic production of synthetic fibers with comparable strength and elasticity. In Nature, they explain how spider silk proteins can be stored in high concentrations without clumping and then drawn at a moment's notice into fibers with five times the tensile strength of steel.
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 | Since its development in China thousands of years ago, silk from silkworms, spiders and other insects has been used for high-end, luxury fabrics as well as for parachutes and medical sutures. Now, National Science Foundation-supported researchers are untangling some of its most closely guarded secrets, and explaining why silk is so super strong.
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 | Spiders and silkworms are masters of materials science, but scientists are finally catching up. Silks are among the toughest materials known, stronger and less brittle, pound for pound, than steel. Now scientists at MIT have unraveled some of their deepest secrets in research that could lead the way to the creation of synthetic materials that duplicate, or even exceed, the extraordinary properties of natural silk. ...> Full Article |
 | With would-be goblins and ghosts set to drape those huge fake spider webs over doorways and trees for Halloween, scientists in Wyoming are reporting on a long-standing mystery about real spider webs: It is the secret of spider web glue. The findings are an advance toward a new generation of biobased adhesives and glues -- "green" glues that replace existing petroleum-based products for a range of uses. A report on the study is in the October issue of ACS' Biomacromolecules, a monthly journal. ...> Full Article |
 | Physicists have found the formula for a Spiderman suit. Only recently has man come to understand how spiders and geckos effortlessly scuttle up walls and hang from ceilings but it was doubted that this natural form of adhesion would ever be strong enough to hold the weight of real life Peter Parkers. ...> Full Article |
 | If you want to spin silk like a spider then you need to rethink your starting material, Oxford University scientists have discovered. ...> Full Article |
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