In this pollution-conscious age, there is renewed intrest in spider silk. Humans have utilised this completly biodegradable fibre for thousanda of years.
The ancient Greeks used cobwebs to stop wounds from bleeding and the Aborigines used silk as finishing lines A more contemporary use is as the crosshairs in optical trageting devices such as telescopes.
Current interest is mainly due to the mechanical properties an non-polluting mode of production of this incredibly strong and versatile material.
Many man-made super-fibres involve petrochemical processes which contribute to pollution. The production of spider silk is completly enviromentally friendly.
If the production of spider silk ever becomes industrially viable, it could be used to make a diverse range of items such as bullet-proof clothing, rust-free panels on motor vehicles and boats or for medical products such as bandages, surgical thread, or artifical tendons or ligaments.
But there are inherent problems. You need 400 spiders to produce one square metre of cloth. More problematically, these carnivorous octopods cannot be framed like silkworms. They are cannibals and will simply eat each other if in close proximity. Arachnophobes beware!
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