Spidersilk...

Imagine traveling to a land where, if you are in just the right place, and it just the right season, you might see giant, golden spider webs. This is possible if you go to Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, and the surrounding countryside, during the rainy season. This is the only time of the year that the female Golden Orb spider produces a beautiful golden silk. Locally these giant spiders are known as the golden orb weavers, spinning massive, gold-coloured webs, sometimes large enough to span a one lane road, reaching from one telephone pole to another!

Now, imagine collecting these giant spiders to harvest their silk, and then returning them back to the wild, unharmed. This is what a group of 70 people did to collect enough silk to make a piece of rare spider silk fabric. It measures 4x11 feet, and was woven based on the traditional patterns of the Madagascar highlands. Each spider can produce about 80 yards of silk filament. To make the fibres to weave such a cloth, it takes a lot of spider silk. For each individual thread, 96 to 960 spider silk filaments are twisted together. The cloth is a wonderful, lustrous golden colour, featuring stylized birds and flowers.

Most of the world’s silk comes from silkworm moth cocoons. However, unlike silkworms, who are relatively easy to keep in captivity, spiders present unique challenges, namely their cannibalistic nature, so they are hard to keep in captivity. Fortunately, spiders can be collected, placed in a special device to keep them still so the silk can be drawn, and then released back into the wild again.

For its weight, spider silk is stronger than steel, but unlike steel, it can stretch up to 40% of its normal length! These properties make this material something scientists would like to mimic artificially for use in areas such as the military, in surgery, and even for space exploration. The trick lies in replicating the material so there is no need to harvest the silk from the spiders. The challenge for researchers is that this unique filament begins as a liquid in the spider’s gland. It then becomes a remarkably strong, water-resistant solid after following a complicated course through the spider’s interior. It is this process which has been the most difficult to replicate.

Currently, there is an amazing exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York titled “Travelling the Silk Road”. I wish I could go see this exhibit as it takes one on a journey across Asia, following one of the trade routes from ancient times, stretching from Xi’n to Baghdad.