
Graphene-Fed Silkworms Produce a Super-Strong Silk That Conducts Electricity - indexerror
http://futurism.com/graphene-fed-silkworms-produce-a-super-strong-silk-that-conducts-electricity/
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sgt101
Did you know that rubber conducts electricity ? Ok it's conductivity is 10^-14
s-m, but if faced with a kragagooogle volt of potential, it _will_ conduct.
Carbon fibre conducts rather better... which can be a worry if you are in a
sail boat in a thunderstorm.. but to be a useful conductor we are looking for
10^6 s-m or better, better than, or close to copper. What does this stuff do?
The article does not relate.

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notliketherest
What is a kragagooogle ?

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inopinatus
"kraga" appears to be a swedish word meaning "flange", so hopefully that
clears things up.

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Groxx
Google guesses Icelandic for me, which apparently translates as "collar".

Seems obvious in retrospect.

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dnautics
No evidence that the silk contains graphene, low n. Visually inspect the em
cross section... Can you see a difference? The authors don't produce a
quantitative measure of entropy in the pictures to justify the claim that they
are different.

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imaginenore
Previous posts:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12664699](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12664699)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12674063](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12674063)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12683994](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12683994)

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graycat
Use for a _skyhook_?

A _skyhook_ is what? Dirt cheap way to mass into earth orbit. How? Put a
weight on a string, attach the string at, maybe, the equator of earth, put the
weight into orbit, and let the centrifugal force of the weight keep it in
orbit and keep the string tight.

Then to put mass into orbit, let it _crawl_ up the string from electric power
conducted from earth in the string.

Main problem: Getting a sufficiently strong string!

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hwillis
Main problem is more that there is no advantage to a skyhook if you're just
putting things into orbit. Every kilo you lift with a skyhook pulls it down
and it has to be used to de-orbit that mass, or lifted up by rockets or
thrusters etc. Unlike an actual space elevator, or orbital ring, or launch
loop, it doesn't hold itself at altitude.

Also, there's really no need for the tether to be conducting. For one, you
could just use carbon fiber, or have a single conductor mixed in with tensile
fibers, or just use a solar panel, or just spin the whole thing (which gives
you the real advantage of bringing you up to orbital velocity)

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graycat
I was being very simple. I used _skyhook_ as informal and humorous and did not
know that it had a technical meaning in this context. I was thinking more of
what is commonly called a _space elevator_ but did not look up the details,
e.g., synchronous orbit or some such.

Really I was just commenting on the spider silk with carbon fibers that might
add some of the needed strength and also permit sending power to whatever was
_crawling_ up the string of the elevator.

Again, I was just commenting on the OP and the fiber and not trying to get
into space elevators in detail.

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hwillis
Oh, I figured you meant it. In that case carbon fiber is stronger, more
conductive, and cheaper. Why bring up space elevators if you have no interest
in saying or learning something about them?

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graycat
> Why bring up space elevators if you have no interest in saying or learning
> something about them?

Because when I looked into space elevators, the main problem was getting the
cable strong enough for its weight. So, with spider silk, already amazingly
strong, with carbon, a first guess, or hope, for an application would be for a
space elevator.

So, in response to the OP, I mentioned the cable, string, whatever, for
skyhooks, space elevators, or whatever.

Again, my understanding is that space elevators are well enough understood and
the main issue is just the cable. So, given the OP, I mentioned the cable,
mostly just the cable, without digging into the well understood details of
space elevators. I wasn't trying to discuss space elevators in general, just
the cable and just in response to the OP.

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mirimir
> Zhang’s team tested conductivity and structure after heating the silk fibers
> at 1,050°C (1,922°F) to carbonize the silk protein, and unlike untreated
> silk, the carbon-enhanced silk conducted electricity.

After that much heat, would this silk be useful for making fabric?

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george_ciobanu
Plot twist: Silk worms leave study disgusted with shity new taste of food.

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mrfregg
"...by spraying fresh mulberry leaves with SWNTs or GR solutions...containing
SWNTs with solution concentration of 0.2 and 1.0 wt % and GR at the
concentration of 0.2 and 2.0 wt %" I'd be surprised if they tasted anything at
all, if they can taste :)

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wastedhours
Interesting that they're not dangerous - had a pot of SWNTs and the warning
labels against breathing them in were 4x larger than the container itself!
Same with getting them on your hands, thought it was due to them creating lots
of micro-cuts - guess the low concentration makes that less likely?

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Already__Taken
Nanoscale things are considered dangerous because they happily pass straight
through cells. Not something you want to find out is a problem.

/notascientist

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mgiannopoulos
This calls for an evolved Spider-Man storyline :)

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conqrr
And a Carbon-Spidey(Silky??) vs Electro sequel.

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leke
So ummm, what kind of nutrition does graphine have?

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jansenv
lots of carb-ons and fiber.

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krige
Is graphene even a thing? Last I checked it was still a magical hypothetical
substance made with pencil shavings and duct tape (that's an exaggeration but
only a mild one). Every now and then I see news about graphene being the next
big thing, like, very soon, but the results I see fail to prove that it's even
an actual substance, and the evidence is the lab that made it swearing that
it's totally a thing.

