A team at the Technical University of Munich in Germany has designed a glass chip pierced with micro-sized tubes that act the same way as spider silk glands, and can be used to replicate the initial stages of natural silk production. It’s an interesting development since production of artificial spider silk has proven difficult in industrial quantities and qualities, and its tensile strength to density ratio is five times that of steel, making it potentially very useful as armour and in medical applications.
Unless you have been bitten by a genetically modified radioactive spider lately, the Net-2000 will satisfy your most inner arachnid superhero desires, except the making out with Kirsten Dunst bit. However, I bet that if you have enough real Mary Jane and buy yourself red and blue pajamas, shooting this 15- square-foot net rod will actually make you believe you are the friendly neighbour himself. Check it in action after the jump.
A new material relies on millions of tiny plastic fibres that can grip solids as the fabric slides across them, then quickly release those objects when pulled away vertically. The technology is based on the anatomy of a spider’s gecko’s foot, and may be used for things like hanging art on a wall, or wrapping a broken leg on a battlefield. Screw that stuff: I’d like to use it to build a Spider-Man climbing suit.
