Spider Silk As Kevlar?
The silk that spiders produce to spin their webs is a pretty amazing substance. If you think of spider silk as a type of cloth or fabric then it is probably the most durable fabric known to man. Due to the tensile strength of spider silk the US military is interested in testing the silk as a form of Kevlar.
Recently the US military contracted Kraig Biocraft Laboratories to manufacture kevlar made from spider silk. As you can imagine gathering a bunch of spider silk with the purpose of creating mass quantities of kevlar for thousands of military troops is not an easy task. One problem that is facing the manufacturers is the fact that spiders do not produce silk in vast quantities since spiders are often cannibalistic, and therefore do not bother with web spinning all of the time. However, silkworms do produce mass quantities of silk, but their silk is not as strong a spider silk, which is stronger than kevlar.
In order to solve this problem researchers removed the silk producing genes from silkworms and replaced them with silk producing genes from spiders. This sort of genetic tinkering makes spiderman seem possible.
Do you believe that investing in spider silk kevlar is a good use of taxpayer funds? Or do you believe that current kevlar is not in need of improvement?
Contact us today for Dallas Pest Control, Austin Pest Control, Houston Pest Control, & San Antonio Pest Control.