subject: The Atypical Fabrics in the World [print this page] The Atypical Fabrics in the World The Atypical Fabrics in the World
Among the many museums that collects exceptional items on Earth and from other celestial bodies is the Smithsonian Institution Museums in the US. This institution houses thousands of rare and collectible items that have something to do with history from aircrafts to moon rocks. But there are no specific proofs that this gigantic museum holds a rare cloth. Collectors all around had been vying for items that are considered rare so that they can have it displayed in their own archives or respective museums.
The Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Italy however, has a rare and controversial cloth that it houses and is widely known as the Shroud of Turin a cloth that allegedly contains the face of Jesus Christ. The religious importance of the Shroud of Turin makes it one of the rarest cloths on Earth but a cloth that can never be used for something to cover the body indeed just a cloth to display.
But there is another rare cloth that surfaced. It has gained popularity over the internet and other media outlets not because of its historical or religious significance but because of its extraordinary or its awe-inspiring composition and production. Not to mention the price its maker tagged for the 2.6-pound textile. What this cloth made of that makes it rare? Well, it is mainly made up of spider web. Yes, a manually extracted spider web from 1 million golden orb spiders that are abundantly found in Madagascar. The makers used elaborate machines to extract webs from the spiders and through it they have weaved a golden textile with attractive patterns as big as a blanket.
But why did they use spider webs? Do they just want to show-off something so they can get at least a Guinness? Incredibly, what the 70 people thought about it was something a sort of experiment granted that spider webs has great properties that they claim can match or even surpass that of the world's most strongest fiber material.
"Spider silk is very elastic, and it has a tensile strength that is incredibly strong compared to steel or Kevlar," says Simon Peers to Wired.com, a textile expert who also co-led the project. "There's scientific research going on all over the world right now trying to replicate the tensile properties of spider silk and apply it to all sorts of areas in medicine and industry, but no one up until now has succeeded in replicating 100 percent of the properties of natural spider silk."
In another story, research scientist in the US discovered a process in mass culturing spider web. The study concluded that the webs are being produced because of the protein based in its molecular composition. With that in mind, the scientist proved that by using goats' milk he can mass produced spider webs for textile use. Now, he imagines a world with clothes and workwear uniforms that are made up of strong fibres from spiders. The golden cloth is currently displayed at the American Museum of Natural History. It took the 70 men 4 years to collect the webs of the spiders and they have extracted about 80 feet of filaments each spider.
