Scientists Make Spider Produce 5 Times Stronger Web

Scientists in a recent research have made spider produce a web that can hold a human and is five times stronger than a normal spider-web.

Researchers at Italy's University of Trento took advantage of metabolic processes of the spider to combine spider silk with grapheme and carbon nanotubes

"We already know that there are biominerals present in in the protein matrices and hard tissues of insects, which gives them high strength and hardness in their jaws, mandibles and teeth, for example," said team leder Nicola Pugno .

The spider was just made to drink water containing nanotubes before it produced the super web.

"So our study looked at whether spider silk's properties could be 'enhanced' by artificially incorporating various different nanomaterials into the silk's biological protein structures."

The research published in the journal 2D Materials opened a new possibility of millions of spiders producing tonnes of stronger silk.

"Furthermore," adds Pugno, "this process of the natural integration of reinforcements in biological structural materials could also be applied to other animals and plants, leading to a new class of 'bionicomposites' for innovative applications."