How does the spider spin its self-assembled silk?
Of all the exciting topics in the field of material and biochemical research, one of the hottest by far is unraveling the mysteries of spider silk.
Of all the exciting topics in the field of material and biochemical research, one of the hottest by far is unraveling the mysteries of spider silk.
Materials Science
Nov 30, 2020
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22
A team of researchers from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, Keio University and Kyoto University, has found that liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) drives the process of converting spidroin proteins to ...
New biomaterials developed at the University of Bayreuth eliminate risk of infection and facilitate healing processes. A research team led by Prof. Dr. Thomas Scheibel has succeeded in combining these material properties ...
Materials Science
Aug 28, 2020
1
289
Protons are subatomic particles with a positive electric charge. Proton translocation plays a significant role in natural phenomena and manmade technologies. But it remains challenging to control proton conduction and fabrication ...
Spiders produce amazingly strong and lightweight threads called draglines that are made from silk proteins. Although they can be used to manufacture a number of useful materials, getting enough of the protein is difficult ...
Biochemistry
Jul 08, 2020
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1319
The proteins that make up all living things are alive with music. Just ask Markus Buehler: The musician and MIT professor develops artificial intelligence models to design new proteins, sometimes by translating them into ...
Biotechnology
Apr 10, 2020
5
57
Researchers led by engineers at Tufts University have developed a novel, significantly more efficient fabrication method for silk that allows them to heat and mold the material into solid forms for a wide range of applications, ...
Materials Science
Dec 16, 2019
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492
Spider silk consists of fiber-forming proteins, stored by the spider in a specialized gland. When the spider needs silk, for instance to build a web, it extrudes the silk proteins through a long duct in which they are exposed ...
Materials Science
Nov 04, 2019
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33
Why are the lightweight silk threads of web spiders tougher than most other materials? Scientists from the Universities of Würzburg and Mainz teamed up to find answers to this question. They were able to show that the natural ...
Biochemistry
Sep 26, 2019
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12
Achieving strength and extensibility at the same time has so far been a great challenge in material engineering: increasing strength has meant losing extensibility and vice versa. Now Aalto University and VTT researchers ...
Materials Science
Sep 16, 2019
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31