DST visit to SSRL cancelled

On Monday April 6 Scientists from the Department of Defence Science and Technology (https://www.dst.defence.gov.au/) was scheduled to visit our UNSW Facilities and personnel to initiate discussions on new spider silk initiatives with a focus on Defence. A full day of talks (by Sean Blamires, Patrick Spicer, Patricia Flanagan, Sean Li and others) and visits to…

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We supply spider silks

Spider silks we supply Science and Research Priorities Spider dragline (or major ampullate) silk is the world’s toughest material. It combines high strength and extensibility in unique ways to outperform all other natural and synthetic materials per unit mass, including Nylon, Kevlar® and silkworm silks. Furthermore it has unique properties as a highly optically and…

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Silk book near completed

I am close to completing a book about Silk to be published by the SSRL. All going well it will be out early/mid 2021. The content is based around my Lecture series presented in Rivera, Uruguay in 2018. Here’s a small preview: What is silk? Silk is a natural proteinaceous secretion of many kinds of…

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Spider silks in wearables

Another application of spider silk we (in collaboration with Trish Flanagan and Pat Spicer) are exploring is its incorporation into wearables to create new adaptable features in different kinds of clothing and equipment.

Here Trish is isolating the silk collected from Trichonephila to weave them into yarns for hybridization with other fibres.