WEBVTT - Spider Tech 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.240 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:15.000 Forward Thinking. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.360 the podcast that looks at the future and says, spider 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:23.680 he is our hero. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Joe McCormick. Hey, everybody, quick, 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:26.960 Spider check. Spider checks? Are the spiders on your body? 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:32.760 I don't think so. I've got three ticks, but no spiders. 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:35.880 I'm not a record free I'm just kidding. I don't 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:41.840 only ticks, I have a verbal what what so? Uh? Yeah, yeah, No, 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:44.480 no spider spiders on your body. You couldn't find any 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:48.040 of mine either, Which is that that's something of a comfort. 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:50.440 Why why do you ask? Well, I just we had 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.000 to establish that before we could move on so quick. 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:56.240 Round the table. How do we feel about spiders? Generally 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:58.880 in favor? There are a couple of exceptions that wig 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.760 me out, Lauren. I like them, like them, I do. 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:05.880 I find them fascinating and cute. I appreciate them very 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:10.360 much cognitively, but I think that they are the physical 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:15.280 embodiment of fear. I I am. I am designated as 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.920 the person who takes care of any sort of spider 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:23.759 incident in our home. Spider incidents also any other type 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:26.440 of creepy crawley sort of thing. So spiders are just 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:30.080 one form I would say bugs, But of course then 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:32.319 I would offend all people who are true lovers of spiders, 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:35.920 which are of course arachnids. Uh. Yeah. So, but most 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:37.760 of the time I just capture them. I do a 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.320 capture and release program because I think spiders are incredibly helpful, 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:45.840 so I don't I don't like to extinguish their little lives. Well, yeah, 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.960 if you don't like your entire body being covered in insects, 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:53.720 you should appreciate spiders certainly. Uh. And I not being 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:56.880 entirely covered in insects Another fun fact. Yeah, I get 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.880 pedantic about the arachnid distinction too. I you know, I 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.240 just can't deal with it. A while back, there was 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:07.640 an AP and Associated Press story going out. There was 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:10.800 just some little fluff piece about there were some children 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:13.880 visiting the office of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:18.720 it said that the governor smashed a spider in front 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.600 of the students. That was the story, but it called 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:25.680 it a spider, and then a paragraph later referred to 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:30.280 it as an insect but not the same thing. That 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:35.320 that's like saying, um, a mammal and a bony fish. 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:39.240 They're they're like separated by that much distinction. I think 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:42.960 the headline show should have been politician Christie in between 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:50.920 bridge uh bridge conspiracy theories, squishes, a possible insects slash 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:54.040 a acted details to follow when you get more on 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.639 this story. Uh yeah, this is complicates or or okay, 0:02:57.639 --> 0:02:59.800 So here here are two specific types of spiders that 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:02.040 do give me a little bit of Willie's when to 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:04.920 look at them, or at least pictures of them. I 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:08.520 have not seen either spider moving around in person, but 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:11.360 you've probably eaten both of them. Well, I don't know. 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.240 The curved spiny spider is more is native to Asia, 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:16.720 and I have not yet made my way there. That 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.360 doesn't mean that I couldn't have possibly encountered one some 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:24.240 other way, but pieces of your food somewhere it could be. Yeah, 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:28.720 curved spider, that's the actual name, curved spiny. And we 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.400 have a picture in our notes, which I realize not 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:34.560 terribly helpful for you listeners out there. But the picture 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.920 it looks almost like the body shape is almost triangular. 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:40.360 And then uh, in the at the base of the 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:44.640 abdomen are these long horns that extend outward. And that's 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.720 actually a female. The males do not have the horns. Yeah, 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:49.440 it's a little bit like a like a wishbone with 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:52.080 a spider attached. I was going to say, it looks 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:57.280 like Tim Curry and Legend, right, Yeah, in spider form, right, 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.760 I do not want spider him Curry. No, it only 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:07.119 it only choose insects, not scenery. Then I have the 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:11.120 Ravine trapdoor spider, which you know, Joe, before the podcast started, 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:13.120 you said, this thing doesn't even look real. It does 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:15.320 look kind of weird because if you were to view 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:18.479 the spider, uh, like like, let's say it's just crawling 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:20.200 around on the ground. You were reviewing it from above, 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:24.000 it looks like someone has cut it's abdomen in half, 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:27.039 like it's it's just a flat ended abdomen as opposed 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:29.360 to a rounded one. Yeah. In the back of its abdomen, 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.960 it's just this flat disc with the design that looks 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:36.599 like one of the Dharma initiative from Yeah, it looks 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:38.560 kind of like it could be a poker chip or 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:41.280 a coin even And and the thing is, this is 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:44.400 a trapdoor spider. It digs a burrow and it crawls 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.039 down in it. So if you were to actually see one, 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:49.720 you would be more likely to see it's it's rear end, 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.360 that flat rear end, and think, hey, that looks neat 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.360 I should pick that up, and then immediately regret your decision. 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:58.920 These are native to the state we live in. These 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:01.080 are native to Georgia. And if you've never seen a 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:03.160 picture of one, like I said, if you look at 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:05.120 what it looks like, it's fake. In fact, I remember 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:08.839 seeing comments on a blog post about these things where 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:11.640 one of the well one of them said, no, that's 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:13.880 a that's a spider that was injured by being cut 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.000 in half and uh and then it healed. You should 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:18.920 be ashamed of yourself. And there's like, no, dude, this 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:22.000 is actually the way these things look in real life. Well, 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:24.760 we'll try to remember to post some post some pictures 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:27.240 on social Yeah, when this this podcast goes live at 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.000 any rate, Yeah, there there's some spiders that kind of 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:32.360 wake us out. But we're not just here to talk 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:34.760 about the future of getting the willis. We're here to 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:37.960 talk about science and technology. So I think we should 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:42.159 discuss how spiders fit into our future, specifically how they're 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:46.680 going to be inspiring technology that matters to us. So 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:50.320 we're talking about bio mimetics again, that's right. So, yeah, 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:53.080 we've established that spiders are very important to us in 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:56.360 a natural way absolute cleaning up insects in the ecosystem. 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:00.080 But by looking at natural designs that we find in 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:03.120 the organic kingdoms, we can actually see, hey, you know, 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:07.200 nature has been working on this design for a long time. 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:11.760 There's no shame in sort of getting some inspiration from 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:15.200 what's already been done. Sure, especially when you know you 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:19.760 get something as completely effective as, for example, spider silk. Yeah. Now, 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.960 this is the main focus of this podcast is spider silk. 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.720 Now we're not saying that spiders don't have a myriad 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:29.799 of other incredibly amazing attributes and features, but spider silk 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:34.720 alone is phenomenal stuff. Yeah, spider silk is i will say, 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:39.320 completely amazing. So it's very tough and ductile. It's able 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:43.920 to withstand enormous stretching pressure before it breaks. So according 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:46.640 to some accounts, spider silk you can stretch it out 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:49.839 by about of its length without its snap. That is 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:54.200 absolutely amazing, and we talk about ten style strength, which 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.760 is that ability to withstand that pulling force before it snaps. 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.520 And the fact that this has such elasticity makes it 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:04.120 an incredible material. Well yeah, and it's the elasticity paired 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.360 with how strong it is for its weight and size. 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:12.000 Uh So, I was actually reading a really funny paper online. 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.960 So if y'all seen Spiderman two, yeah, yeah, okay, so 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:19.400 Sam Raimi, Spiderman's not some other Spider Man. This isn't 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.240 the one where he disco dances down the show. No, No, 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:28.320 Tony McGuire, Oh my godness, Molina as Cock. Right, brilliant, brilliant, 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:32.720 uh performance, I would say, right, wonderful. So Doc Cock 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:34.760 is fighting with Spider Man on top of a train 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:37.840 and he basically he hits the switch and throws the 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:40.680 train out of control. You know, there's no breaks and 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:43.280 it's barreling down towards the end of the line. Right, 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:46.360 And since Spider Man is not Superman, he actually wants 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.640 to save people and not just let rampant destruction rain 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:52.640 down upon poor average mortals. Right, I think you're referring 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:55.640 to Man of Steel, not Superman in general. But yeah, 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:59.040 Spider Man cares about people. So he wants to stop 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.400 the train, right, right, How's he going to do it? Well, 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:03.120 he tries a few things. He tries to sort of 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:05.760 brace against the tracks, and that doesn't work. So then 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:07.880 he gets the idea. He puts his body out on 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:11.360 the front of the train and he shoots spider webs 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.080 out into you know, he can shoot the webs out 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:16.440 of his hands, and he shoots them out so that 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.400 they attached to the buildings he's passing by as he goes, 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:23.720 and this forms a kind of V shaped uh rubber 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.120 band sort of of tensile strength to press back against 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:29.960 the force of the train as it barrels forward. And 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.240 spoiler alert, he does manage to stop the trains. It 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:35.280 would have been kind of a bummer if if all 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.280 of his efforts had failed and that people just plummeted 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.000 to their death or something. Sure, but you know, many 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.640 times in superhero movies, superheroes do things that don't necessarily 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.640 have anything to do with physics at all whatsoever. Right, 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:51.960 So could this actually be something Let's say that let's 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:55.600 say that we were able to scale up the Spider's silk. 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.959 Is that even remotely possible? Yeah? Based on a paper 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:02.360 I read. Yes, I was actually reading this paper in 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:06.000 the Journal of Physics Special Topics, which is an undergraduate 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.040 journal run by the Department of Physics and Astronomy at 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:11.920 the University of Lester. And by the way, this journal 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:14.560 is delightful. I can't wait to read more of it. 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:18.040 I've never discovered it before. But it's obviously not going 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.520 to be like a top resource for ground breaking research, 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.240 but it's more full of kind of fun and weird topics, 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.360 like science fiction based things. And you know what, if 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.160 we wanted to offset global warming by moving the Earth 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.080 farther away from the Sun, how much farther would we 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:35.720 have to push it back and it's radius. See, these 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:38.479 are cool questions. I mean, obviously there are no practical 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.439 answers here because that's not something we could do. It's 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.200 all just kind of estimating. But using what knowledge we 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:48.439 do have to come up with interesting answers to weird questions, 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.400 that's fantastic. Uh, And so I really like it in anyway. 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.120 This one paper was called doing Whatever a Spider Can 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.760 by Brian Forster in Stone, and they calculated the force 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.280 that would have been required to stop a train as 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.160 Spider Man does in the movie and then they compared 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:05.720 that to the resistance force that could have been created 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:10.679 by real spider webs assuming proportional scaling, and they concluded 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:12.840 in the end of the paper that if Spider Man's 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:16.280 webs were proportionally as strong as real spider silk, they 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.240 actually should have been sufficient to stop the train as 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.600 depicted in the movie. See this is incredible. I mean, 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:26.600 it's just it does demonstrate how amazing spider silk really is. 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.640 And also this is you know, that was key to 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:32.679 the formation of the mythology of Spider Man. I mean, 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:35.880 the whole point was that the silk that Peter Parker 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.400 creates is supposed to mimic what spider webs are naturally 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.320 capable of doing. And even back when when Spider Man 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.400 was being created, everyone was pretty aware of the fact 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.800 that spider silk is really strong stuff, particularly when you 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:53.040 take into consideration how thin that those those individual strands 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.720 tend to be. So I mean, it's it's great to 0:10:55.760 --> 0:11:00.000 see that not only was this sort of common knowledge, uh, 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.440 it not only did it bear out, but it shows 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:07.080 that this was actually not necessarily plausible, but a possibility. 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:09.520 If you were able to scale that up, it would 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.880 in fact, have been sufficient to stop that out of 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:16.719 control car. Yeah, so I was interested in finding out, well, 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:21.000 what is the toughest known spider silk. It's actually not 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:23.080 just the toughest snow and spider silk, but it's the 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:26.920 toughest known biomaterial. It's a form of spider silk that 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:32.440 comes from the Darwin's bark spider, the Carorostrius Darwinnie that's 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:34.920 a Madagascar and it's a spider that makes silk that's 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:38.880 up to ten times tougher than kevlar fibers. And toughness 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.840 is the amount of kinetic energy the material is able 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:45.520 to withstand without fracturing. In a two thousand ten paper 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:49.200 in pl Os One, the author's discussed how they identified 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.559 the spiders a good candidate for especially tough silk by 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:56.280 observing how it created gigantic orb webs that were like 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:58.719 up to two point eight square meters, which is more 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:04.400 than thirty point one square feet. Is terrifyingly enormously gigantic 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.800 spiderwebs suspended over water sources like streams and rivers, So 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:12.840 you can imagine like seals and deer catch the flying fish. Now, 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:15.360 I think they were catching for catching insects coming up 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:18.400 off the water, and the authors point out that silk 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.400 of this kind would be a great inspiration for incredibly 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:24.960 tough bio mimetic materials. So they are all kinds of 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:27.480 things we could use spider silk for if we had 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:30.040 enough of it, in situations where we need materials that 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:34.440 are very light and very strong and very elastic. Okay, 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.440 so this has enormous potential. But I think that, I mean, 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:39.840 clearly what all of us are thinking about here first 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:44.199 is clothing. Yeah. Yeah, you can make you a really 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.080 really lightweight bullet proof vest or something like that, or 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:49.640 you can make it I mean like fashion. I mean 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.560 I want a spider dress. Well, you're in luck, and 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.040 all you need to do is break into a museum 0:12:56.120 --> 0:13:00.199 and steal it, because there has actually recently been had 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:04.360 an entire garment, actually two whole garments made from spider silk. 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:07.680 So in two thousand nine, Simon Pierce, who is a 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:12.040 British art historian and textile expert, and Nicholas Godly, and 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:16.800 American fashion designer, revealed the result of this textile experiment 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:18.840 they'd been working on while they were both living on 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:21.240 the island of Madagascar. Again in the same place as 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:25.040 the Darwin's bark spider. And this was a spider silk cloth. 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:27.719 Now it wasn't made by the Darwin spark spider. It 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.400 was made by golden orb spiders of Madagascar, and they've 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.679 been known to produce very brightly colored yellow silk, this 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:40.720 beautiful golden hue. So the project started in two thousand four. 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:43.360 They had the help of a team of seventy workers 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:46.960 who collected wild spiders for the project, and then another 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:52.679 dozen workers who harvested the silk with hand powered extraction machines. 0:13:55.640 --> 0:14:00.000 The silk extraction machinery was actually inspired by a similar 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.360 system more than a hundred years old, which the French 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:08.079 missionary Jacob Paul Kembaway used to harvest filaments for spider 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.280 silk textiles around the turn of the last centuries, around 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:15.440 the year nineteen hundred in Madagascar. Um. But coming back 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.120 to this project, the recent one, over a period of 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:21.440 four years that they were able to spin the silk 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.560 into thread and produce an eleven foot long by four 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:28.920 ft wide piece of cloth out of spider silk. It's 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:35.240 bright yellow. It's kind of strange to imagine handling. I 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:41.400 just imagine incredibly exhausted spiders being very very proud of 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:45.240 their work. Yeah, you you'd be pretty on target there, 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.160 at least about the exhausted part. So producing spider silk 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:51.640 is not easy. So we can make silk from silkworms. 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:53.840 That's not that much of a problem. Well not not 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.240 if you're a person. But have you ever asked a 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:58.640 silkworm how they feel about? It's true, no one knows 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:02.200 what it's like when you're a silk worm. Well you know. 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:06.400 But but silkworm are relatively um docile creatures. I mean, 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.600 they basically just hang out being worms and produced the 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:12.800 silk stuff. Spiders, as it turns out, are less friendly, 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:19.360 aus especially to each other. So spiders are cannibals. They're 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.680 also really aggressive, aren't they in territorial while some are 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.760 And yeah, you can't pin spiders up together because after 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:29.000 the work is done each night, they'll eat each other. 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:33.400 So apparently Peers and Godly tried to create a reusable 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.520 spider farm at first, but um I wrote an article 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:40.240 for the Economist where Peers explained that they'd have a 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:44.000 collection of five spiders that would cannibalize itself down to 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.320 fifty or so over the course of a few days. 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:49.440 You know, I think if if Ford had to work 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:51.360 with these kind of problems, we never would have had 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:55.920 an assembly line. Yeah, just say if the machinery ate itself. 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:02.040 So apparently, in in the more final version, the project 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:07.560 involved constantly releasing spiders and then catching new ones. It's 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:11.160 a very work intensive project. Exactly. Apparently they ended up 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:15.080 using more than a million wild spiders for the production 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:19.320 of this one cloth. One million, sixty three thousand to 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.640 be exactly. You gotta figure some of those were recaptures. 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:27.720 Some of the spiders are like not again. So the 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:30.520 cloth eventually went on display in the American Museum of 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.640 Natural History in two thousand nine. Uh, And people say 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:38.800 it has really unique tactile characteristics, like it feels vaguely sticky, 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.520 and that the cloth threads are both very very light 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:45.760 and very very strong. I don't think I want sticky clothing. 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:50.000 I worked pretty hard at my clothing not being sticky. 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.080 Somebody had to wear it because they didn't stop at 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:56.080 this one shawl. They created the first piece that they 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:58.640 created a cape after that. Yeah, they made a cape. 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:01.000 They made a cap up and they made a lady 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:05.200 wear it. And there are pictures at her. There are 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:08.239 pictures of her wearing it, and she did they make her? 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:11.359 I don't know if they personally did. I assume she 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:13.879 was some kind of model. I'm sure there are pictures 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.399 of this one particular woman on the internet wearing this 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.960 spider silk cape. She looks very serious, as she looks 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.439 very regal. But you know, in every photograph she's thinking, 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:28.040 you get this miracle of nature off my skin. I'm 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.320 looking at it right now, and uh, you see what 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:33.600 I'm saying. She seems to have the same same sort 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:37.000 of expression of disdain that most fashionable models are are 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:40.199 are told to cultivate. I'm not saying that they have 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:45.440 disdain like you're not good enough to wear this? Yeah, yeah, 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:48.960 you know what, I can't read the expression anymore. Beyond that, Well, 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:51.080 if she's out there listening, you can ride into us 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:52.840 and tell us what it was like to wear that 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:57.040 spider cape. Yeah, let us know. It's a very specific 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:01.119 call out there. But okay, so spider silk has amazing properties, 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.399 but this project shows how difficult it is to mass 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:07.720 produce useful amounts of it. I mean, obviously we're gonna 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:10.360 have trouble coming up with a million spiders every time 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:13.600 you want to make a pair of socks. So so 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:17.840 clearly getting spiders to make this silk for us is 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:20.600 not the most practical approach, especially if we want to 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:24.679 talk about mass production, right right, especially for something like clothing, 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:27.040 which I do want to point out this was a 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:31.600 viewer question from YouTube, actually Mr Richard Miller and I 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:33.159 and I mentioned the full name because that is his 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:37.240 full YouTube name. UM asked us about this on on 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:40.600 YouTube and our video about bio memetics, So thank you 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.359 so much for writing that question in Richard. Yeah, so, 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:46.800 so spider silk from spiders probably not the practical solution, 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:50.320 not feasible at all, but again, as we said, very useful. 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:54.280 So is there a way we can make useful amounts 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:57.280 of spider silk or something very much like spider silk 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:01.639 without milking a million spiders. Well, we're working on it. 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:04.520 The short answer at this very current point in time 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:08.280 is not really but all right, so uh so, some 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:12.600 researchers have created spider silk from silkworms. They they genetically 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:16.480 engineered the silkworms, which produce hella more silk than spiders do, 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:20.159 to create stuff that is not quite as strong as 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:22.800 actual spider silk. It's it's sort of a hybrid between 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:25.640 the two. Still pretty cool. So this way you get 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:28.280 you get the benefit of being able to produce the 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:32.239 silk without the concern of the product producers eating one 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:36.159 another at the end of every day or biting you. Right, Okay, 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:39.320 that's fair, and and more silk than you would from 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:44.080 the spiders overall, uh, fewer, fewer silkworms or spiders involved. Yes, 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:50.760 you can also code bacteria to create spider silk. Well, bacteria, bacteria, Well, 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:53.000 they're not creating the silk. There's there's a few steps 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:56.000 in this process here. First you take and or engineer 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:59.840 a gene that encodes the production of spider silk proteins. Okay, 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.359 and you pop that gene into some easily programmable bacteria, 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:07.760 like for example equally. Um. Yeah, it's it's nasty, but 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:10.840 it's one of those that we know a lot about. Yeah. Yeah, 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:12.280 you can just kind of scrape out part of its 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:14.280 genetic code and be like here, instead of doing this 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:17.080 other thing, we want you to produce this protein. Um. 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:20.080 Then you must about with the bacteria is metabolism to 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:22.280 give it the right building blocks to create the silk 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:28.679 proteins and bam, you've got we little silk factories. But okay, 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:30.760 wait a minute, that just sounds like that would leave 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:33.960 you with the protein, right right, Yeah, So that's that's 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:37.000 the first part. Once you've got this raw protein material, 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:39.800 you need to purify it into silk fiber and then 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:44.360 spin the fibers into the actual tensile silk strands. Um. 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:48.040 Part of this involves stretching the fiber to align its molecules, 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:52.040 which is possibly best done using a mechanical actuator, which 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:56.399 is like a little spider silk taffy pole. I didn't 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:58.840 think it was possible for me to get more disturbed 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:02.560 as this podcast, and yet somehow it's And I don't 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.000 even find spiders to be that ikey or anything, but 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:09.560 this this is weird. With start with Tim Curry from 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:12.000 Legend Spider, and we just go downhill from well that's 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:14.280 all right, Well, I'm sure, I'm sure that it's gonna 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:15.960 turn around and by the end of this I'm just 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:18.600 going to be singing the praises of spiders. Well, are 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:22.160 you ready for something really silly? Sure, hit me with it. 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:26.520 What if instead of spider silk we used spiber silk. So, 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:30.520 so we flipped the d around it. That's essentially the process. 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.320 What is spiber silk. So one of the companies that's 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:38.040 that's working with bacteria to create spider silk is called 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:44.840 Spiber b e R. So the b being from bacteria 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:48.640 I would imagine or something. Um, but they're they're talking there. 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:51.160 I mean, they've got these grand plans that they're talking about, 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:57.040 like building cars out of spider Shut up and skeptical 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:00.639 of that. Well, okay, so here's the like over on 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:02.879 tech stuff. We recently did a pair of episodes about 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:05.679 carbon fiber and it's it's really impressive stuff. It's some 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:09.719 like six lighter than steel, but five times is strong. 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:14.760 And Spiber is claiming that they're artificial spider silk. Spiber 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:18.600 silk maybe as as strong as steel and lighter even 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:22.719 than carbon fiber. Alright, So, and of course lighter cars 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:25.480 means that the the engine has to work less to 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:27.960 move the car, so it ends up being a more 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:30.560 efficient vehicle in the grand scheme of things. Okay, now 0:22:30.640 --> 0:22:34.320 I want to apologize and back off on my skepticism little. Obviously, 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:36.840 I guess they're not talking about making every part of 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:39.359 the car out of No. No, I imagine like the 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:42.800 engine would still be made of engine, but some parts 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:47.560 of it would be made the body that chases. It's 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:50.639 it's why do I never pronounce that? Correct? I go 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:53.119 through like nine pronunciations in my head. None of them 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:57.240 is pronounced. So yeah, No, the chassis, the body of 0:22:57.280 --> 0:22:59.879 the car, like those elements will be made of this 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:03.120