Future of Spider-Man
Could you imagine being Spider-Man for just a second? Swinging from building to building and shooting spider webs from your hands would just be living life on a whole new level. However, this may not be possible yet, but artificial muscle is now being experimentally made with spider silk. The reason behind this is because of it's stunning qualities that are much similar to our muscles. Also, with spider silk muscles, our bodies would be much more efficient at what they do.
Although scaling walls and gliding across buildings would be cool, we are far ways from that. The spider silk is still currently under study as scientists have only started looking into this specific strand of silk from the spider to observe human-like muscle qualities. Development of a product or utilizing the spider silk within the human body has not yet been done, but scientists do know what triggers the spider's silk to stretch and retract to behave like our very own muscles. Perhaps future technological advances will allow for the spider silk to be used as a device or even to create artificial muscles for our human body.
Posted by Andrew Do (1)
This sounds pretty cool, not only because Spider Man's the best superhero out there, but also because there are probably so many possibilities that researchers can delve into if they could actually use silk this way. I can imagine it having a lot of uses in the medical field, potentially being used to repair damaged muscles and even being used in hearts which have very limited regenerative capabilities. My only question/concern is that although silk does have the ability to stretch and retract like our muscles do, is it able to produce enough power and withstand enough tension to be able to be used as artificial muscle in our bodies?
ReplyDeletePosted by Peter Makhoul
In the medical field, this could be such a revolutionary change to muscle regeneration. Also, perhaps this could be used to help slow the deterioration of muscle in degenerative diseases such as Duchene's! The question about power and tension is still up in the air I suppose because they have only identified its ability to shrink and stretch is very efficient, but it is very strong for it's weight/size so I would assume it to be strong enough for our bodies in large amounts.
DeleteAbove posted by Andrew Do
DeleteThis is a very interesting idea. By using spider silk as a pseudo myofibril, entire muscles can be created that would be able to react similarly to actual muscle tissue. I can see issues in integrating this with live tissue. The challenges would be that muscles fire utilizing action potential, not to mention the body is mostly made of water. Since the silk reacts to water, it would be impossible have the muscle fire within this environment. While this would pose an issue for biological application, there could be many other area this technology could be useful.
ReplyDeleteposted by Logan Lassin
DeleteThis technology is not only going to be used to create potentially artificial muscle, but perhaps even implemented in future devices due to the silk's incredible strength and elasticity. It could serve multiple functions which is what scientists are still trying to determine with what they could use it for besides medicine. Imagine some of the strongest instruments/vehicles being created through spider silk because of its amazing properties!
DeletePosted by Andrew Do
I have actually researched this idea before after seeing spider silk used in a human, on an episode of Grey's Anatomy. I had to know if what they were doing was actually possible. The contractile strength silk possesses has always blown my mind. The fibers are so lightweight, yet they are stronger than steal. If spider silk could be harnessed to make human muscles that actually function in the aqueous environment within the body, medicine could make huge advances. I agree with the above comment, I am not exactly sure how the silk could be used, since it reacts in water, but I am eager to see if scientists can iron out all of the technical kinks and pull this off. I find it really awesome how far science and medicine has come, that we can actually fathom using a byproduct of spiders to recreate human muscles; it’s unbelievable!
ReplyDeletePosted by Jenna Lansbury
I was also astounded at the fact of how strong the silk of spider was and whether or not it could be used potentially in the human body. Honestly, science and medicine has advanced so far that some people may not even know certain things are now very possible such as using this silk to perhaps create human muscle. I too watched Grey's Anatomy and that's why this brought such interest to me as an article!
DeleteAbove Posted by Andrew Do
Delete