Spider Silk Essay

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Spider Silk Spider silk is extremely strong material. According to weight, it is stronger than steel. The silk has many different uses. They construct their webs with it due to its strength and resistance. It also uses it for the production of egg sacs so protect their offspring. Not only does it come in handy for protection, but also for catching prey. The spider uses its silk to wrap their prey, such as flies, up so they can’t move. They also use it as something to fall on if they’re jumping, or to drop onto if they need to escape from a predator. A spider’s silk spigots The silk is made by the silk glands. It is originally in the form of liquid, with a molecular weight of 30.000. The silk the spider produces varies according to protein and other molecules. The glandula aggregata (which is a gland) produces the sticky material. There are six others. The ampulleceae is for the production of the walking threads, the pyriformes is for the attaching threads, the aciniformes produces silk for wrapping prey, the tubiliformes for the silk of the egg-sac, and the coronatae threads for the sticking threads. The silk proteins are made up of amino acids, which dissolve in a water-based solution. Once this is done, the spider will push this liquid through its long ducts. This then leads to spigots on the spider’s spinnerets. These are microscopic size. Usually the spider has a couple of spinneret pairs. These are located at the rear of the abdomen. Every spigot contains a valve that controls the thickness and speed of the silk. The spigots pull the molecules out of the ducts and release them into the air. This makes the molecules stretch out and connect together to form long strands. The spinnerets then wind up these strands together, which then make the silk fiber. Most spiders have more than one silk gland. Spider silk has many human uses too. It has antiseptic

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