Home/Posts Tagged ‘spider’
Posts Tagged ‘spider’
Animals, Science & Technology, Weird Stuff, Jan 24th, 2012,
Freckles the goat is part spider. Her milk is loaded with spider silk protein. The silk from Freckles has potential uses in medicine (as a ligament replacement), is stronger than Kevlar and extremely elastic. So why not just harvest the silk from spiders? Spiders can’t be farmed because they are cannibalistic, while goats have been farmed for 10,000 years or so. Genetically engineered ‘spider goats’ also produce vast amounts of spider silk in their milk when compared to tiny golden orb spiders. Freckles is the creation of Randy Lewis, a professor of genetics at Utah State University. The farm…
Tags: engineered, Freckles, genetic, goat, silk, spider
Science & Technology, Weird Stuff, May 22nd, 2010,
Scientists in the US state of Wyoming are extracting special proteins by milking goats that have been injected with spider DNA. Spider silk is known for being extremely strong and elastic – making it very useful for certain medical and industrial applications. Randy Lewis, a professor of microbiology, heads up the team of scientists who injected a herd of goats with genes from a golden orb spider. From an article in the Toronto Sun: Because of its strength and flexibility, people are interested in spider silk for uses that range from artificial ligaments and tendons to bulletproof vests and even…
Tags: DNA, goats, Lewis, professor, Randy, scientists, silk, spider, spiders
Wildlife & Flora, Oct 22nd, 2009,
They only eat plants and their males may even help look after the kids. No, they’re not Californian soccer dads, they’re Mexican spiders. Central America’s jumping spider, or Bagheera kiplingi – named for a character in Kipling’s Jungle Book – outwits and outmaneuvers a wasp-like species of ant, which guard acacia bushes in a symbiotic relationship that the jumping spiders don’t participate in. They just want to eat the sweet leaves of the shrub and then jump somewhere else. Of all the 40,000 known species of spiders, the Bagheera kiplingi is the first and only known vegetarian species of spider….
Tags: Bagheera kiplingi, spider, vegetarian
Wildlife & Flora, Oct 19th, 2009,
I have an extreme case of arachnophobia. The mere sighting or mentioning of a spider makes me cringe—and flee the area, if possible. When I found out that yet another spider species was discovered and to be added to the list of over 40,000 already found, I was not a happy camper. But, as I read further about this new critter, I made some discoveries of my own that made it seem a bit more fascinating and a little less scary, for a change. The Bagheera kiplingi—as it was called—resides down in Central America. This eight-legged jumper is about the…
Tags: spider, vegetarian, Wildlife & Flora
