Cocoon!

Silks are incredible protein fibers produced by many different species of insects. Besides their use in making versatile textiles, silks are currently used in many different medical and engineering applications, from sutures to tissue engineering scaffolds to flexible electrode brain implants. Since I love fabrics and I'm interested in what biological engineers can do with biomaterials, I recently started working on a fun side project to raise and engineer silkworms, the animals used in industrial silk production around the world. We're having a lot of fun learning about silk and how to raise such macro-organisms when we're used to bacteria. Watching them grow from tiny hatchlings to enormous (finger-sized) worms ready to cocoon has been pretty amazing.

The worms aren't actually worms at all, but the larval stage of a moth. The cocoon is made out of a single mile-long strand of silk that protects the animal during its transformation into a moth. The actual process of making the silk cocoon is incredible, here is a time-lapse movie one of my colleagues made of the 24-hour long process:

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There was some big news yesterday in transgenic silk from Notre Dame and the University of Wyoming, where scientists have genetically engineered silkworms to produce silk
Tarantulas produce silk from their feet:
Silk is an amazing biomaterial, cultivated and prized for more than 5,000 years. The silk threads that we weave into our shiny fabrics are actually enormous protein crystals produced by insects.
Tougher than steel and Kevlar, the silk of the black widow spider has long been coveted by manufacturing companies, defense contractors and comic-book reading nerds as a possible material of the future.

Silk worms and cacoons?

your insane.

By isaac newton (not verified) on 05 May 2010 #permalink