Spider’s web

Our heron s still flying west. The crack in the clouds has widened and gleams of sun are catching a willow-tree top, a spangle of raindrops caught in a spider s web, the rough velvet of the meadow. 

Vollrath, F. (2000a). Coevolution of behaviour and material in the spider s web. In Biomechanics in Animal Behaviour (P. Domenici, Ed.). Bios, Oxford. 

KU, in co-operation with a German battery manufacturer, managed within a short time to produce silver GDE with a low PTFE content and to adapt them to the chlor-alkali technology in test cells. An examination of the GDE manufactured using a special process shows that the active silver centres of the GDE are held together by PTFE filaments in the form of a spider s web (Fig. 16.14). 

This textile fiber is the first man-made organic textile fiber prepared wholly from new material from the mineral kingdom. Though wholly fabricated from such common raw material as coal, water, and air, nylon can be fashioned into filaments as strong as steel, as fine as spider s web, yet more elastic than any of the common natural fibers. 

If we remove two vertex boron atoms, the resulting framework is an arachno (Gr., spider s web ) structure. With two vertices missing, the structure is even more open than is the nido case and the resemblance to the parent closo structure is less appurent. Arachno structures obey the electronic formula 2n + 6 (or n + 3 electron pairs). Pentaborane(l I), BjB,. must therefore have an arachno structure. In the arachno series the extra hydrogen atoms form ertdo B—H bonds (lying dose to (he framework) as well as bridges. 

The set-up of this book is comparable to a spider s web. Ceramics are materials which can very well be described as the centre of the web. The threads of the web are the sciences which study ceramics geology, archeology, chemistry, physics, even medical and many other sciences. The material is excellently suited for use in technical, cross-curricular education. Consequently many curricular subjects will be dealt with in order to understand ceramics and all of its... 

The silk-like threads of a spider s web is made of a protein. This fine thread woven by a spider is stronger than a steel thread of a similar thickness. A spider weaves threads of different kinds, each suited for the purpose - firm dry threads for the spokes of its web and sticky threads to catch its prey. 

In fact, the chain of interlocking "free enterprise" relationships that describes the flow of chugs and dirty money in and out of the United States only masks the type of conspiracies that Americans see not in pulp thrillers, but in nightmares. We will uncover these conspiracies, the spider s web of the British... 

Published Soviet material documents the spider s web of links between the Peking government and expatriate Chinese the cited M. A. Andreyev s recent book, Overseas Chinese Bourgeoisie — A Peking Tool in Southeast Asia, is the most comprehensive Soviet source available. What the Soviets either do not know, or have not chosen to publish, is that joint Chinese expatriate-British financial operations in the world narcotics... 

Many advances in organic chemistry involve making and using derivatives of carboxylic acids. Proteins are bonded by amide functional groups, and chemists have created synthetic amides that emulate the desirable properties of proteins. For example, the nylon in a climbing rope is a synthetic polyamide that emulates the protein in a spider s web. All the penicillin and cephalosporin antibiotics are amides that extend the antimicrobial properties of naturally occurring antibiotics. 

In (Toss-section, these striations appear as radiating iines with very faint, concentric lines joining them, in a pattern somewhat resembling a spider s web. 

The silk that makes up this spider s web is, gram for gram, stronger than steel, yet it is lightweight and stretchable. Spider silk is made of protein, a biological molecule. 

Not all of the fibroin protein is in / -sheets. As the amino acid composition in Figure 6.12 shows, fibroin contains small amounts of other, bulky amino acids like valine and tyrosine, which would not fit into the structure shown. These are carried in compact folded regions that periodically interrupt the sheet segments, and they probably account for the amount of stretchiness that silk fibers have. In fact, different species of silkworms produce fibroins with different extents of such non - / -sheet structure and corresponding differences in elasticity. The overall fibroin structure is a beautiful example of a protein molecule that has evolved to perform a particular function — to provide a tough, yet flexible fiber for the silkworm s cocoon or the spider s web. 

Sometimes, however, truth is stranger than fiction. A Greek physician had a visit from a patient who developed a strange sensation in her ear while on a motorcycle ride. The physician was shocked to see, inside her ear, a spider s web with a spider ensconced in it, apparently comfortable in its warm surroundings. Recognizing that this was an epic moment, he ran for his video camera and managed to record the arachnid s hasty departure from its new home. 

But it is not only geodesists who have to occupy themselves with networks also in other technical fields we can discover network structures. The most well-known technical networks are electrical networks, water supply networks, transportation networks, frame networks and communication networks. Even in nature the veins of leaves and wings of the dragonfly show network structures, and perhaps the most well known is the spider s web network. 

Spider s web loaded with dew (photo John Chilton). 

---