1 Million Spiders Make Golden Silk for Rare Cloth

1 Million Spiders Make Golden Silk for Rare Cloth

www.wired.com

A rare textile made from the silk of more than a million wild spiders goes on display today at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

To produce this unique golden cloth, 70 people spent four years collecting golden orb spiders from telephone poles in Madagascar, while another dozen workers carefully extracted about 80 feet of silk filament from each of the arachnids.

(visit the link for the full news article)

wow thats neat, and really beutifull. I never knew that this could be done.



big spiders though wouldnt want them crawing on me...


www.wired.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 23-9-2009 by MR BOB]

reply to post by MR BOB


That's just outstanding!!

Amazing find there Mr Bob! BIG S&F

What's really incredible is how strong it is, almost like kevlar, just wow.

Kudos to the guys that took all the time to do that!

S & F
Nice find there, truly amazing work and one fine piece of art as far as I can see.

When the spider silk is fully replicatable the possibilities for usage will be endless. I read an article a few months back, stating that spider silk could be used for constructing buildings, I can't find it right now but I'll post it later.

Now if only we can put our energy into solving the worlds problems. Still really cool though.

Eeesh... those are some LARGE spiders!
But, amazing work... ah, isn't nature interesting?

Very interesting ... S+F


I wonder how much money a spider wrangler makes? Those are some big specimens there, you'd have to pay me a pretty penny

...from Wikipedia:

The venom of the golden silk orb-weaver is potent, but not lethal to humans. Its venom is a neurotoxin similar to that of the black widow spider; however, its venom is not nearly as powerful. Its bite causes local pain, redness, and blisters, but these symptoms usually disappear within a day (though the bite mark may leave a scar). There were efforts to produce garments from Nephila silk. The spiders were fastened and the extruding thread coiled up until the spider was exhausted. However, this method did not prove commercially viable.[5] Fishermen on coasts of the indopacific ocean remove Nephila webs and form them into a ball, which is thrown into the water. There it unfolds and is used to catch bait fish.

Now notice how swollen up and sausage-like the man holding the spiders right index finger is. OUCH!

Really neat story, but you couldn't pay me enough to milk spiders.

I'm McLovin' it! great stuff, OP. S&F for you.

Despite hard times, human ingenuity keeps on truckin'. Fantastic. You rarey see long-term projects like this involving so much patience and handwork. As human life becomes more and more mechanized, it is increasingly important to keep in touch with the things we can make with our hands and/or simple, ancient tools like looms and so forth. If that type of skill vanishes in a puff of high-tech-mediated smoke, we truly will be doomed.

Interesting article! Golden orb spiders get pretty large, and their webs are strong enough to catch large insects. Or in this case, a small bird:

www.telegraph.co.uk...

reply to post by Orion65


OMG That picture made me jump! I literally got goosebumps and chills. I am terrified of spiders for some reason and well this one is HUGE

Even though I am not fond of these guys that sure is a beautiful piece of silk. Amazing what those spiders can do and what is made from it

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/24008fc80620.jpg[/atsimg]

Edit to add pic....I am probably going to have nightmares about these now..lol

[edit on 9/23/2009 by mblahnikluver]


Also if you go here you can see other pics of the orb weaver eating that bird. Its crazy! Just scroll down to October 2008 and the 4 pics are there. Amazing honestly.
spidereatsbird

[edit on 9/23/2009 by mblahnikluver]

If you want a true bullet proof vest, you'll make it from reinforced spider silk.

Okay, so the silk is nice, when will this be used as armor for subjugation?

reply to post by mblahnikluver


My sister and her then fiance were backpacking through Costa Rica and almost ran into one of these webs. It had a big green golden orb spider in it and my sister said the web was enormous. She said once they stepped back to take a look at it (and get away from the spider, lol) that it was intricately beautiful and bigger than any spider's web she'd ever seen. I guess she's lucky she didn't run into the web herself or maybe she would have ended up like that bird.

Can it fly?
2nd line.

Originally posted by Orion65
reply to post by mblahnikluver

 

My sister and her then fiance were backpacking through Costa Rica and almost ran into one of these webs. It had a big green golden orb spider in it and my sister said the web was enormous. She said once they stepped back to take a look at it (and get away from the spider, lol) that it was intricately beautiful and bigger than any spider's web she'd ever seen. I guess she's lucky she didn't run into the web herself or maybe she would have ended up like that bird.

WOW! Yeah after this thread I started looking up these spiders and they get pretty big! They do make beautiful webs however I dont want to run into one I have a HUGE fear of spiders for some reason. I had a huge FL brown furry (not sure what it was) spider in my bathroom over the door and I yelled and was stuck there for about 15mins until it s scurried away...lol

This is too cool. I have one of these spiders that's been making a web over the front of my house for the last two weeks. I thought it was a banana spider and was wondering why it's web was yellow.. Now I know!

Originally posted by mythatsabigprobe
This is too cool. I have one of these spiders that's been making a web over the front of my house for the last two weeks. I thought it was a banana spider and was wondering why it's web was yellow.. Now I know!

I wouldnt be able to go through the door! I would have to "move" the spider. I dont really like to kill them, they dont mean to freak me out

Originally posted by Darky5K
Okay, so the silk is nice, when will this be used as armor for subjugation?

Not too soon probably, not on a large scale anyway. It's time and labor intensive, it's hard to find people willing to work with bitey spiders, and the spiders refuse to be "farmed" and battle when kept together.

So in conclusion, never. BUT many corporations are doing things like putting spider dna in cow dna and making spider silk-like threads.... in.... SOME WAY? I have no idea how. I am not a scientist or even a smart guy. I try to be smart but really, I'm just loud lol

That has to be the most expensive piece of cloth ever. $10,000 a square inch.

[edit on 25-9-2009 by cloakndagger]