Spinning Materials from Slime

Spinning Materials from Slime
Dec-04-12
Move over spiders—researchers have developed a way to weave the strands of hagfish slime into a material as strong a plastic or nylon.

When threatened, the hagfish produces a sticky slime made up of strong threads of protein 100 times smaller than a human hair. Researchers at Canada’s University of Guelph harvested the slime from the fish and dissolved it in a liquid, then spun it like silk to create the woven materials. The team believes it could be possible to transplant the slime-making genes into bacteria that could then be cultured on a large scale, similar to what researchers have been doing with spider silk proteins.

Spinning Materials from Slime


More Info about this Invention:

[DISCOVERY.COM]
[UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH]
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