Spider Goat

GLaDOS

http://www.news.com.au/technology/meet-spider-goat-the-dna-enhanced-web-flinging-nanny-that-may-one-day-knit-your-bones/story-e6frfro0-1225867617374

ON a farm in Wyoming, USA, goats are being milked for their spider webs.

And if that sounds bizarre, molecular biologist Randy Lewis claims that within two years, spider silk milked from goats could replace your body's tired or strained tendons and ligaments - maybe even bones.


Professor Lewis and his team at the University of Wyoming have successfully implanted the silk-making genes from a golden orb spider into a herd of goats and are now, finally, producing one of nature's strongest products in useable quantities.

Genetic engineering ftw

darjeeling

Coming soon: tarantula cheese.

aidoh

I remember being told about this years ago, it's pretty exciting that they finally have uses for this. I remember my lecturer flying off the handle a bit and telling us that they'd be able to set up a platform in space and use big silk ropes to hoist up satellites . Maybe some day...
Even using this stuff in small amounts could manufacture biodegradable fishing lines, stitches etc. apparently. Seems cool anyway!

Catsmokinpot

I thought it was the way the spider "squirts out" or extrudes the chemicals from its silk glands which organised the silk into its different molecular forms? did they figure out how to do that in the goat i wonder?

aidoh wrote: »

I remember my lecturer flying off the handle a bit and telling us that they'd be able to set up a platform in space and use big silk ropes to hoist up satellites .

Theres already a big NASA project being funded to try and figure out how to do that, I hope we see it come to fruition in our lifetimes

Tree

I suppose if you get the raw material and then squirt it out of narrow pores like they synthesise nylon (?)

El Siglo

aidoh wrote: »

I remember being told about this years ago, it's pretty exciting that they finally have uses for this. I remember my lecturer flying off the handle a bit and telling us that they'd be able to set up a platform in space and use big silk ropes to hoist up satellites . Maybe some day...
Even using this stuff in small amounts could manufacture biodegradable fishing lines, stitches etc. apparently. Seems cool anyway!

That wasn't John Feehan in UCD by any chance? Man's a legend!:D

Yeh it's pretty cool alright.

Overature

i want spider pig

aidoh

El Siglo wrote: »

That wasn't John Feehan in UCD by any chance? Man's a legend!:D

Yeh it's pretty cool alright.

Haha it was indeed. Yeah he's one of my favourite lecturers. Well I only had him for one class when I was in first year but he's sound.

El Siglo

aidoh wrote: »

Haha it was indeed. Yeah he's one of my favourite lecturers. Well I only had him for one class when I was in first year but he's sound.

It wasn't by any chance "Land Use and the Environment" back in the second semester of 07-08? If so, we were probably in the same lecture! The man is a genius so he is, absolute genius! Definitely the best lecturer I had in UCD!

darjeeling

These are not the spider-goats you're looking for.



Worth posting all the same though.

The Sun wrote:

(link - includes vid with Spiderman theme / goat mashup)

These silly billies can't afford a slip as they graze on a virtually vertical dam wall.

The daredevil herd were snapped at the 160ft Cingino barrier in Northern Italy, near the Swiss border.

It's thought the Ibex goats head there to lick the stones for their salt and minerals.

Of course, one false hoof would mean certain death for the animals, whose climbing antics rival those of film superhero Spider-Man.

Butt the goats don't give a dam about health and safety. They've never even herd of the nanny state.

The Sun - your one-stop shop for cutting-edge science.