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Comment by delinka | Hacker News Reader

I sense a new explanation for Spiderman's webs on the next reboot.

But seriously, are we anywhere close to using this stuff for human benefit? Or near learning how these worms do what they do? This sounds fabulously awesome.

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A company called Bolt Threads raised a $50M round this year. It looks like they're going to miss their 2016 release of spider silk clothing, but it also seems like a release date and real product are right around the corner.

https://boltthreads.com/2016/05/11/bolt-raises-50-million-an...

Sort of. Spider silk is made from both a chemical process and physical manipulation by spinnerets. We can make the chemicals but they are not nearly as strong without the spinnerets thus clothing not body armor.

This sounds like the perfect opportunity for some researchers to create nanobots or something to act like spinnerettes. Wonder if there has been any such thing?

Don't forget other ventures e.g.

* http://www.spiber.se/

They already tried it with spiders: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1504/1504.06751.pdf/

The problem is spiders are difficult to farm, unlike silkworms.

after reading the wikis about golden orb spiders today -- this makes sense.

The guy who made that amazing garment from 1.2 million Golden Orb spiders [0] was hand harvesting the thread in a really primitive way...[1]

Humans have been harvesting silkworm thread for ages, so we probably have much better methods of mass harvest.

[0] http://i.imgur.com/y82WBEz.jpg

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u-g0OiYWOQ

Space elevator!

Monopolize space

Silk reinforced with carbon nanotubes still isn't strong enough for a space elevator :'(

How about carbon nanotubes reinforced with carbon nanotubes?

Gluing the tubes together is one of the biggest hurdles, mainly because the individual tubes aren't long enough. If we could make 30cm-1m long tubes (of the strongest kind) we could do with essentially sparsely interlink the tubes, esentially having the nanotubes become part of the matrix. This would also give us freedom in choosing the rest of the matrix for the other properties needed.

So while not exactly nanotube reinforced nanotubes, pretty darn close :)

I think that term is called weaving

Carbon nanotube crocheting

Not on Earth certainly. But I'm pretty sure you could build a space elevator down to the Moon with this stuff.

A lunar space elevator ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_space_elevator ) can be constructed out of kevlar today.

ignoring the UFO aspect of this, maybe this tech would help a 12 mile long tether from breaking as the 1996 nasa version did...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUEFcSesD-w

Not saying I support the idea of monopolizing space, but whoever builds one first with that savings in price... Imagine if McDonalds found a special ingredient from space to add to their burgers and McDonalds is the one who builds a space elevator. Hahaha

Alright I'll see myself out.

cf. The Stuff!

The Right Fries haha

You beat me to the Spider-Man reference.

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