Natural spider silk is already amazingly strong stuff, plus scientists have developed synthetic versions of the material. Now, however, Italian and British researchers have split the difference, in a manner of speaking – they've created silk that comes from spiders, but that has added man-made ingredients which give it extra strength. Led by Prof. Nicola Pugno from Italy's University of Trento, the scientists fed "special" water to three species of spiders. What made it special? Dispersed within it were microscopic flakes of graphene, or carbon nanotubes (which are made of rolled-up sheets of graphene). Taking the form of a one-atom-thick sheet of linked carbon atoms, graphene is currently the
What happens when you feed spiders graphene? Their silk gets crazy strong
Science, at its loftiest, is about peering into these mysteries and so many more, trying to pry open some crack to let the light of reason shine in, illuminating nature's hidden ways. If nature loves to hide, we love to find - our curiosity, perhaps, our most defining trait. This month, I'm at
