Spider drinks graphene, spins web that can hold the weight of a human

[IIamaKing]

We thought we had to worry about our robot overlords....

Now it's OUR SPIDER OVERLORDS!!!!!

Fuck!!!! :-)

Pretty sure its going to be robot spiders with webs that can hold down trains and electrify biological (us)

[Xandrigity]

Oh no, nothing will ever turn out bad with us idiot humans genetically enhancing spiders. No nothing bad could possibly ever go wrong.

[Zethras]

I think that there needs to be an arachnophobia warning at the top.

OT- I don't see how this could ever possibly go wrong.

[Strawberry]

Guys there's a reason why insects are all tiny. They have no lungs and without them they can't sustain large bodies.
So no need to worry yet, first, they have to evolve lungs. Or, maybe, through forced evolution by human hand.... Hmmm.
Besides, spiders are amazing creatures. They only suck the liquid out of you. So in the future we will protect ourselves by evolving without blood, water etc in our bodies.
Probably not possible, so we're fucked.

[s_bushido]

Oh no, nothing will ever turn out bad with us idiot humans genetically enhancing spiders. No nothing bad could possibly ever go wrong.

There's nothing genetic about this.

[Rustedsaint]

Didn’t realy say but how long is the spiders web making glands boosted from this graphemes drink? I’m assuming that once the spider runs out of the graphene it ingested it’ll go back to normal silk

Some spiders like jumping spiders tear the prey into tiny peices with their serrated mouth parts instead of leaving a nice neat husk.
http://infinitespider.com/how-spiders-eat/

[Shelly]

Orb weavers already produce a spider silk thick enough to be used in cloth, one gram of it goes for over $150 and if I remember correctly the ancient royalty of Thailand wore some garments made of it. But feel free to fact check me on that last bit because I'm really fuzzy on it.

Anyway, the biggest problem is that spiders are cannibalistic which makes farming the silk at scale extremely difficult.

Which tends to always be a problem when trying to domesticate predators.

[Everwake]

How the fuck did these horrible things evolve? I swear they're from space.

[King Shark]

So Spiderman is actually a documentary... interesting. Thanks a lot Stan!

[LoLcano]

Cant wait for this ....

[Theoris]

Spiders could (theoretically) eat the entire earth's population of humans in the span of one year.

[hrugner]

I wonder if the graphene ends up reinforcing their body as well. If it's just being subbed into created proteins the little bastards should stiffen up pretty fast.

[Stormspark]

Right. Next they're going to genetically alter spiders to grow to larger and larger sizes in order to produce this super silk in quantities we can use...I can barely tolerate spiders that are 1-2 inches in size, but house sized? Nope.

Don't worry, you won't ever see spiders that large. It's physically and biologically impossible. The way their body is designed does not scale up. Exoskeletons do not scale up. A 100 pound spider would go splat under its own weight.

[Aggrophobic]

Cool stuff.

[hrugner]

Don't worry, you won't ever see spiders that large. It's physically and biologically impossible. The way their body is designed does not scale up. Exoskeletons do not scale up. A 100 pound spider would go splat under its own weight.

Spider shape doesn't scale up, but there are some pretty remarkable carapaced creatures now long dead. Jaekelopterus, Pterygotus and Arthropleura are all examples of giant carapaced fossils. You're right with the spider shape though; I think the largest living carapaced thing is the Japanese Spider crab and that both lives under water, making the form more effective than on land, and weighs only 40 or so pounds. It's scary, but not giant spider scary.

[KOMO1211]

one step closer

[s_bushido]

Spider shape doesn't scale up, but there are some pretty remarkable carapaced creatures now long dead.

It's not just the shape, but how they breathe that limits their size as well. The idea is that there was more oxygen readily available millions of years ago when these giant arthropods were more common, so they weren't as limited by their circulatory system.

[Manabomb]

When it comes to enhancing the size of said spiders capable of spinning super-strength silk, I'mma motion that they go for something from the Deinopidae family.

[IMttps://c1.staticflickr.com/6/5684/21767730865_d942d4ae53_b.jpg[/IMG]

[IMGttps://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6181/6052099621_535932e81f_b.jpg[/IMG]

[IMGttps://farm6.staticflickr.com/5347/14108767892_1ece264382_b.jpg[/IMG]

Lovely spiders all around.

As someone with arachnophobia, I break your links and respond just simply with: No.

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It's not just the shape, but how they breathe that limits their size as well. The idea is that there was more oxygen readily available millions of years ago when these giant arthropods were more common, so they weren't as limited by their circulatory system.

So what you're saying is when need to give spiders lungs.

[Zmaniac17]

Spider shape doesn't scale up, but there are some pretty remarkable carapaced creatures now long dead. Jaekelopterus, Pterygotus and Arthropleura are all examples of giant carapaced fossils. You're right with the spider shape though; I think the largest living carapaced thing is the Japanese Spider crab and that both lives under water, making the form more effective than on land, and weighs only 40 or so pounds. It's scary, but not giant spider scary.

It's not just the shape, but how they breathe that limits their size as well. The idea is that there was more oxygen readily available millions of years ago when these giant arthropods were more common, so they weren't as limited by their circulatory system.

Here's a good explanation of it.



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Right. Next they're going to genetically alter spiders to grow to larger and larger sizes in order to produce this super silk in quantities we can use...I can barely tolerate spiders that are 1-2 inches in size, but house sized? Nope.

Actually we can genetically engineer goats to produce spider silk in their milk. So maybe we could use that.

https://phys.org/news/2010-05-scient...ider-silk.html

[Flarelaine]

Spider shape doesn't scale up, but there are some pretty remarkable carapaced creatures now long dead. Jaekelopterus, Pterygotus and Arthropleura are all examples of giant carapaced fossils. You're right with the spider shape though; I think the largest living carapaced thing is the Japanese Spider crab and that both lives under water, making the form more effective than on land, and weighs only 40 or so pounds. It's scary, but not giant spider scary.

All those lived under water.