A Funnel Web spider is pictured at the Australian Reptile Park January 23, 2006 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo : Getty Images/Ian Waldie)
The secret to why spider's web do not sag in the air or when it's windy lies in the quality of the "hybrid" material that the spiders produce while weaving their webs. A team of researchers has come up with an explanation to the "liquid wire" technique used in the spider's web.
According to a team of researchers from the University of Oxford and Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, there is a reason why thread derived from a spider's web stays taut and never breaks abruptly when stretched to multiple times it's original length.
The reason why it behaves so can be explained with the help of a technique called the liquid wire, complete details of which have been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The technique explains how any loose thread on the spider's web is immediately encapsulated inside a small drop of water glue, which originally covers the core gossamer fibres present in the capture spiral of the web.
Using their knowledge of the technique, the researchers created a liquid wire material in the laboratory. The material thus created works the same was as the thread spooled in tiny watery glue in a way that it expands like a solid and compress like a liquid.
"Surprisingly, each drop packs enough punch in its watery skins to reel in loose bits of thread," Professor Fritz Vollrath of the University of Oxford said in a press statement. The professor added that such "winching behavior is used to excellent effect to keep the threads tight at all times, as we can all observe and test in the webs in our gardens."
The research team made use of oil droplets on a plastic filament to recreate the liquid wire technique in their laboratory. This artificial system, as expected, worked just like spider's natural silk. The filaments got spooled inside the oil droplet with the contraction and expansion of the thread.
The study findings reveal that there is still a lot to be learned from the great properties that a spider's web possesses. The research team believes that it could have a lot of applications in the world of medicine, engineering and materials.
The following video demonstrates spider web construction in slow motion:
