1 Million Spiders Make Golden Silk for Rare Cloth

[Poll_Blind]

From Wired:

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. The resulting 11-foot by 4-foot textile is the only large piece of cloth made from natural spider silk existing in the world today.

--snip--

To get as much silk as they needed, Godley and Peers began hiring dozens of spider handlers to collect wild arachnids and carefully harness them to the silk-extraction machine. “We had to find people who were willing to work with spiders,” Godley said, “because they bite.”

--snip--

Then an additional 12 people used hand-powered machines to extract the silk and weave it into 96-filament thread. Once the spiders had been milked, they were released into back into the wild, where Godley said it takes them about a week to regenerate their silk. “We can go back and re-silk the same spiders,” he said. “It’s like the gift that never stops giving.”

The full article has a bigger image of the cloth, a picture of the spiders themselves (they frikkin' HUGE) and if you click on the picture of the cloth you can see a shot of the whole textile.

Reading the whole article- it isn't long- is amazing. Hand-cranked spider-silking machine crazy. Silking 24 spiders at once crazy. And the machine? Designed from one made during the 1880's/1890's which produced the only other fabric of this nature in the world, now lost. Amazing stuff.

PB

[Captain Hilts]

1. The NYT had a large article about this yesterday. Weird stuff. nt

[BlooInBloo]

2. Clearly these animals' RIGHTS are being infringed. Such slavery must stop now!

But I kid.

That's pretty cool.

[intheflow]

6. I was wondering about that, kinda.

I mean, if you desilk a spider and release it back to the wild, and it takes a week to regenerate its silk, how does it survive without spinning a web to catch its food? :shrug:

[kestrel91316]

12. Probably lives off stores of body fat......there is no guarantee a spider in

the wild will catch all it needs every single day. Nor most other animals.

In the case of vertebrates, that's why God gave us livers.

[Flaxbee]

29. wondered the same thing.

how long does it take to silk them, how much are they depleted, and how do we know they can survive after we just silk 'em and dump 'em? :shrug:

[malaise]

3. Awesome

Truly amazing and breathtakingly beautiful.

[thunder rising]

4. This sounds like a quest out of World of Warcraft ... collect 1M Golden Silk Spiders, find Spider

handlers, milk spiders, weave thread, release spiders, rinse repeat.

[LynzM]

5. Oh, WOW.

I want to *feel* that, which I'm sadly guessing is not allowed...

[Brickbat]

16. I thought the same thing -- I almost feel like it's a loss, to produce it, but then not be able to

touch it, ever.

[LynzM]

27. Yeah...

I mean, you'd have to have stringent rules, hand-washing procedures, limited time, etc. Pat-downs for cutting objects, lol. But... I agree, if you can't touch it... yes, it's beautiful, but I want to know what it feels like!

[pipi_k]

31. the ironic thing is...

they'd probably only make you wear gloves anyway, like when people handle antiques and stuff.


but yeah...I'm a tactile person myself...always feeling and touching stuff...I'd love to get my hands on that fabric and feel it on my hands and face and shoulders.

:)

[imdjh]

7. Two sick things; That cloth must cost a fortune, and Monsanto can probably ..

... make bolts of something that the average person couldn't tell apart for a fraction of the price.

The sickest thing, though, is and always has been: What twisted mind thought they could make cloth from spider spooge? It's like eating sea urchin- wouldn't occur to the normal mind.

[Poll_Blind]

9. Apparently, there's something magic about spider butt cheeks that...

...turns the liquid spider silk into a solid that hasn't been replicated yet. I have little doubt that companies like Monsanto, as you mention, would love to get a cut of that action- possibly with robotic spider-asses. Mmmmm...robotic spider asses.

As to your comment about twisted minds, I would agree- but remember that for a grazillion years until the creation of television and radio, people had oodles of time in the world to poke and prod and explore nature to find out what they could eat or exploit in some other fashion to make living a little easier.

PB

[anigbrowl]

30. What's twisted about it? it's kinda obvious

No big secret that spider make both sticky and non-sticky silk - you'll find that in a science book. As for the textile, that happens in Nature. When I lived in Amsterdam, there was a place near my home with 3 trees completely wrapped in raw silk - there was a colony of silkworms living there and there was just layer on layer of natural silk completely covering the trunk and the branches.

I guess it's weird if you don't like small crawly things...

[Richardo]

8. It's beautiful but it still gives me both the heebies AND the jeebies...

Spiderweb cloth? :shudder:

[Poll_Blind]

11. Me too. "We'd like to give you the special honor of wrapping your newborn in...

...this cloth made from the golden silk of..." (Doctor Evil pinky to mouth) "...ONE MILLION extremely agressive, poisonous spiders! Here, hand her here..."

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! And then I wake up and I realize I'm clutching my pillow and muttering "You'll never get my baby and wrap her in that web- you'll never get my baby and wrap her in that..." (and so on).

PB

[nyc 4 Biden]

10. Missed it by that much..

Too bad it will be at the museum starting today, i visited on Saturday. The extreme mammals exhibit was pretty cool. If they have the spiders there, I'll be relieved I missed THEM.

[Soylent Brice]

13. beautiful creatures:

[TwilightGardener]

18. Well...no. Those would have to meet Mr. Shoe.

[Soylent Brice]

20. i never kill spiders. ever. n/t

[TwilightGardener]

23. I don't like to kill animals and insects...

but if you lived in my old house, you'd turn into a cold blooded spider killer, too. Been bitten by those little shits enough for one lifetime.

[Soylent Brice]

25. i used to live in AZ. the first day i moved into my new house

i had the direct TV guy there and the water utility guy there setting things up and getting things turned on for me.

in my garage we found a black widow, the body of which was just shy of a golf ball. they tried to persuade me to let them spray it with whatever they had. they both had the same spray canister of whatever to kill things like this. (i'm guessing they ran into this sort of thing frequently considering black widows and wolf spiders are abundant out there)

i refused. glass jar. took her outside.

i did that for 2 1/2 years. i have 3 kids, and we never had one incident of bites.

patience for nature. we're all in it together.

not trying to preach from my high horse. just my personal preference.

[dalaigh lllama]

14. I can't help wondering if flies would stick to it.

The wealthy person's flypaper.

[Tesha]

15. Spiders can make their silk sticky or non-sticky...

...to suite the need. The web support fibers are usually
non-sticky but that spiral, round-and-round the web fiber
IS sticky.

Tesha

[csziggy]

17. That is really cool! I've worked with the silk worm silk for embroidery

In Japanese embroidery, the procedure is to start with "flat" silk, which is 8 to 12 filament (depending on the brand). Each filament is from a different silk worm cocoon, so it is very fine. The Japanese call each filament a "suga" and I cannot imagine what a 96 "suga" thread would be like.

While sometime we'd stitch with the flat silk, often we would take the flat silk and hand twist it to make the threads used to stitch. The number of sugas and the tightness of the twist varied depending on how we were planning to use that thread. Compared to hand stitching, weaving the silk is much easier, probably why Japanese embroidery is almost a dying art.

For anyone who wants to see what Japanese embroidery is like, there is a center in Atlanta where the current "master" is teaching students. http://www.japaneseembroidery.com/

[Lone_Star_Dem]

21. That's really beautiful

And interesting. Thanks for the link!

[proteus_lives]

19. Very cool!

Spider-Man has some new formal wear!

[Lone_Star_Dem]

22. I find the whole process to be fascinating and the final result breathtakingly beautiful

From the article:

Researchers have long been intrigued by the unique properties of spider silk, which is stronger than steel or Kevlar but far more flexible, stretching up to 40 percent of its normal length without breaking.


Simply amazing!

[Uncle Joe]

24. I imagine that cloth is mighty strong in addition to being beautiful.

Thanks for the thread, Poll_Blind.

[positrac]

26. Watch some Republican CEO buy the thing and use it for a doormat

:silly:

[newtothegame]

28. Sick and twisted corporatist pigs. n/t

[rug]

32. If I read it correctly, that's the natural color of their silk.

[Poll_Blind]

33. Ya, I believe that's right- which also makes the piece even more exotic.

Never saw spider silk like that. I can only imagine how incredibly beautiful the webs must be, out in the wild, if that's the case.

PB