Spider silk?

Brother Phil and I were on the porch the other day, and the topic swung round to the amazing mechanical strength of spider web. He bumped into something about some piece of clothing that had been made from the stuff. After talking about it for a while, it hit me that I didn’t actually know what I was talking about. Thus, for the last episode of 2020, we dig into the topic of regular silk, spiders, and spider silk.

Happy holidays, and we’ll see you again on January 14, 2021.

Here’s a rather technical article on how spiders spin their silk.

How Spiders Spin Silk

Here’s an article about attempts to create artificial spider silk.

The Tangled Web of Turning Spider Silk Into a Super Material

Here’s a video about how a team actually made a cape from spider webs.

How was it made? Golden spider silk

Here’s an article about the earliest evidence of humans making and using silk, from caterpillars though, not spiders.

Oldest Evidence of Silk Found in 8,500-Year-Old Tombs

Here’s something about how good old-fashioned silkworm silk is made.

How Its Made Silk

Here’s an article about the oldest spider web from the fossil record.

Oldest Preserved Spider Web Dates Back to Dinosaurs

Here’s an article that talks about the earliest spiders, and how they’ve developed since then.

Spider origins

Here’s an article about the incredible webs built by the Darwin’s bark spider.

The world's biggest spider web can span an entire river

Turns out that regular silk can be strong enough to stop bullets.

THE IMPENETRABILITY OF SILK TO BULLETS. 1ST KNOWN INSTANCE OF BULLETPROOF FABRIC

Here’s an article and podcast episode about an all silk bullet proof vest demonstrated in 1891.

The Monk Who Stopped Bullets with Silk

Here’s another video about the cape made from spider silk.

Golden cape made by 1.2 million spiders

And lastly, here are a couple of links about some attempts to make artificial spider silk.

New Artificial Spider Silk: Stronger Than Steel and 98 Percent Water

Stronger Than Steel: Synthetic Spider Silk is Real