Spiders for spiders

Graham Klyne copied an article to <mailto:www-talk@w3.org> on 7 April 2003
in "Is this the future Web?"
(<mid:5.1.0.14.2.20030407145905.02c54f00@127.0.0.1>):

> A team of engineers at the University of California at Riverside are using
> spider silk to make finer optical fibers that could be used to carry light
> in nanoscale optical circuits.
[...]
> The silk they 
> use is from the giant orb-weaving spider of Madagascar, Nephila
> madagascariensis. The engineers are planning to apply the process to the
> thinnest known spider silk, which is produced by Stegodyphus pacificus

I can see it now: millions of spiders living on spider ranches, their webs
harvested each day. The fly-rearing industry is sure to appreciate this
development. What would the ranch workers be called? Spiderkeepers?

Gosh, I'd better reserve Spider-Ranch.com.

-- 
Etan Wexler <mailto:ewexler@stickdog.com>

Received on Tuesday, 8 April 2003 04:34:16 UTC