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Amaurobius ferox is known to spin a cribellate web to facilitate prey capture and provide a protective retreat. [2] The web is special because the silk has a unique woolly texture that is caused by extremely thin and extraordinarily sticky fibers, which gives the species its common-name, the black lace-weaver.
Spider silk structure: crystalline beta-sheets separated by amorphous linkages. Silks have a hierarchical structure. The primary structure is the amino acid sequence of its proteins (), mainly consisting of highly repetitive glycine and alanine blocks, [4] [5] which is why silks are often referred to as a block co-polymer.
Kim Kraig Thompson, a retired lawyer, invented the protein expression platform in 2002, which would become the basis for Kraig Lab's work with spider silk. [3] He founded Kraig Biocraft Laboratories in April 2006 to develop and commercialize spider silks and other high-performance polymers gene and sequences using platform technology in combination with genetic engineering concepts.
The spider silk has a greater tensile strength than steel, and the material is even strong enough to stop a bullet. In terms of everyday usage, spider silk could be a huge game changer when it ...
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Dragon silk is far more flexible than Kevlar (the material used by US Army to develop body armor). Its flexibility is 38% higher than normal spider silk and is noticeably more flexible than the "Monster silk" from the same laboratory. In percentage, Kevlar's flexibility is 3% and dragon silk's flexibility is 30% to 40%.
This complex silk machinery enables spiders to use task-specific silks (e.g., for web assembly, egg-case construction, prey wrapping, etc.). [10] The different types of silk (major ampullate silk, minor ampullate silk, flagelliform silk, aciniform silk, tubiliform silk, pyriform silk, and aggregate silk) [ 11 ] are composed of different types ...