From Shiloh Enriquez
I read your news piece on making spider webs more resistant to
“supercontraction” by replacing certain amino acids in their structure
(28 October, p 22).
Couldn’t the supercontraction effect be used to create synthetic
muscle fibres?
I know that robotics groups have tried using various materials to create
artificial muscle with varying success. Some have used alloys with
“shape-memory”, or organic polymers that react to electrical stimulation. But
fibres that are five times stronger than steel and contract 55 per cent could
have very useful applications.
The spider-web fibres alone probably wouldn’t be effective but if we could
find a fast reversible chemical method to simulate the effects of water on the
fibre then we might have found the solution.
Arlington, Virginia
