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Glue Goes Green: Golden Orb Spiders Produce Strongest Glue

March 1st, 2010 Posted in Green Living & News, Spiders & Other Arachnids

It’s always exciting when scientists make eco-friendly breakthroughs. But these discoveries are even more interesting when they’re so outrageous, they just might work.

Recently, researchers discovered the glue from golden orb spiders can be harnessed into the most eco-friendly and strongest glue yet. Spider glue will be the newest back to school must have.

Read on to learn about:

• Golden Orb Spiders’ Amazing Webs
• Wyoming’s Bio-Glue Breakthrough
• How Scientists Will Harness Bio-glue

Golden Orb Spiders’ Amazing Webs

Golden Orb Spiders’ Amazing Webs
There are lots of spiders who spin sticky webs, but Golden Orb spiders are the stickiest. They may not be the largest spider, but golden orb spiders make the largest and strongest webs.

Many other spider webs become damaged easily from insects and birds. Some spider facts tell us that these spiders need to re-spin their webs sometimes as often as every day.

But amazingly, golden orb spider webs can often last several years before being taken down. Their webs’ sturdy and sticky structure make great fly traps (and the strongest glue).

Spider silk glue is a liquid-like solution secreted from the golden orb spiders’ aggregate glands. The substance then coats threads of the webs to make them sticky enough to capture prey.

How Golden Orb Spiders’ Weave:

• The spider shoots a thin, gluey line of silk into the wind
• The silk catches on a branch, tree etc.
• The spider walks across the strand while releasing a stronger, non-gluey thread
• This process repeats till a Y-frame is constructed with non-sticky thread
• The spider then wraps its form of glue around the frame to capture its prey

This method of capture obviously works for Golden Orb spiders. But how can humans harness this into one of the strongest glues to come from nature?

Wyoming’s Bio-Glue Breakthrough

Researchers at the University of Wyoming had an eco-friendly breakthrough involving the properties of spider webs. These scientists discovered that the web glue from golden orb spiders is made of proteins with sugar attached, also known as glycoproteins.

These two new proteins are the key to creating the strongest glue made with eco-friendly materials. By using web glue instead of petroleum, researchers hope to make one of the world’s strongest biological glues.

Now that scientists are armed with this incredible discovery, they can begin studying ways to harness the strongest glue in the rain forest.

How Scientists Will Harness Bio-glue

In the past, people were horrified to hear how horse hooves were used for glue. But this process is not nearly as deadly or cruel.

Omer Choresh, of the Wyoming research team, says the plan is to clone and over express the genes. This cloning process will then move towards a greater production of the glycoprotein. By building up the inventory, what comes next is a “green glue” that serves multiple purposes but is biologically created.

This cloning will not only protect the spiders from invasive procedures, the outcome will be the strongest glue without environmentally damaging side effects.

Although spider glue has not yet hit the shelves, this research is a giant leap in that direction.

Someday, elementary students of the future will start asking, “Can you pass the spider glue?”