What’s going on here? Why do spiders do this after floods and does it happen everywhere?
L’expertise universitaire, l’exigence journalistique
Articles sur Spider web
Ensemble des articles
Unsettlingly, it appears that spiders’ legs really do have minds of their own.
The glue that gives spider webs their stickiness is a form of spider silk protein. Researchers can imagine cool uses for a synthetic version – but had to wait for the tricky glue gene to be sequenced.
Spiders use different types of silk for different purposes – and not all of them are as strong as steel.
Believe it or not, I have studied the hairy legs of spiders for years and can give you some definitive answers on this.
Autumn is spider season. It’s worth getting to know more about our eight-legged friends.
Some spiders produce silk than can actually be stronger than steel and 50 times as light.
Les contributeurs les plus fréquents
-
Professor of Science Communication and Chemistry, University of Hull
-
Researcher, Macquarie University
-
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland
-
Lecturer in Fine Art, Loughborough University
-
Postdoctoral Researcher in Biological Sciences, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
-
Research Fellow in the Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University
-
Emeritus Professor, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford
