Skip to main content

Brown recluse spider's exceptionally strong silk inspires new generation of tough materials

Arachnophobia is ingrained into our collective psyche, and few spiders are feared as much as the brown recluse. Even though their bites are often misdiagnosed, these unassuming arachnids are widely despised.

But recluses have more on offer besides their neurotoxic venom — they also spin the strongest silk of any spider and may help inspire a next generation of tough materials.

Recommended Videos

Intrigued by the strength of the recluse’s silk, researchers from Oxford University and William & Mary studied the spider and discovered they use a unique ribbon geometry not found in any other arachnid.

“The unique characteristic of the recluse’s silk are periodically placed loops,” Hannes Schneipp, a William & Mary professor who co-led the study, told Digital Trends. “As the silk is stretched, the loops can open, one after the other. In this process, the filament gets periodically stretched and relaxed. This process, [which] we named ‘strain cycling,’ surprisingly can enhance the energy absorption of the material many times.”

Schneipp was joined in the study by Oxford professor Fritz Vollrath and William & Mart PhD student Sean Koebly. They published a paper detailing their findings last week in the journal Materials Horizons.

The researchers think that, by using similar knots and loops, materials can be made more flexible and durable. They’ve demonstrated this technique through computer simulations.

“We have already proven in our new study that the same principle works in other materials,” Schneipp said. “Loops enhance the material’s toughness. Think about looped fibers and ribbons creating materials with giant energy absorption capabilities. Brittle materials can become more ductile and avoid catastrophic failure and fracture.”

Vollrath took this idea one step further, describing how the toughness of looped structures may find applications, even beyond Earth.

“This [toughness] right away suggests possible applications,” he said in a press release. “For example, carbon filaments could be looped to make them less brittle, and thus allow their use in novel impact absorbing structures. One example would be spider-like webs of carbon-filaments floating in outer space, to capture the drifting space debris that endangers astronaut lives and satellite integrity.”

Dyllan Furness
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Dyllan Furness is a freelance writer from Florida. He covers strange science and emerging tech for Digital Trends, focusing…
ChatGPT’s awesome Deep Research gets a light version and goes free for all
Deep Research option for ChatGPT.

There’s a lot of AI hype floating around, and it seems every brand wants to cram it into their products. But there are a few remarkably useful tools, as well, though they are pretty expensive. ChatGPT’s Deep Research is one such feature, and it seems OpenAI is finally feeling a bit generous about it. 

The company has created a lightweight version of Deep Research that is powered by its new o4-mini language model. OpenAI says this variant is “more cost-efficient while preserving high quality.” More importantly, it is available to use for free without any subscription caveat. 

Read more
Star Wars legend Ian McDiarmid gets questions about the Emperor’s sex life
Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

This weekend, the Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith 20th anniversary re-release had a much stronger performance than expected with $25 million and a second-place finish behind Sinners. Revenge of the Sith was the culmination of plans by Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) that led to the fall of the Jedi and his own ascension to emperor. Because McDiarmid's Emperor died in his first appearance -- 1983's Return of the Jedi -- Revenge of the Sith was supposed to be his live-action swan song. However, Palpatine's return in Star Wars: Episode IX -- The Rise of Skywalker left McDiarmid being asked questions about his character's comeback, particularly about his sex life and how he could have a granddaughter.

While speaking with Variety, McDiarmid noted that fans have asked him "slightly embarrassing questions" about Palpatine including "'Does this evil monster ever have sex?'"

Read more
Waymo and Toyota explore personally owned self-driving cars
Front three quarter view of the 2023 Toyota bZ4X.

Waymo and Toyota have announced they’re exploring a strategic collaboration—and one of the most exciting possibilities on the table is bringing fully-automated driving technology to personally owned vehicles.
Alphabet-owned Waymo has made its name with its robotaxi service, the only one currently operating in the U.S. Its vehicles, including Jaguars and Hyundai Ioniq 5s, have logged tens of millions of autonomous miles on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin.
But shifting to personally owned self-driving cars is a much more complex challenge.
While safety regulations are expected to loosen under the Trump administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has so far taken a cautious approach to the deployment of fully autonomous vehicles. General Motors-backed Cruise robotaxi was forced to suspend operations in 2023 following a fatal collision.
While the partnership with Toyota is still in the early stages, Waymo says it will initially study how to merge its autonomous systems with the Japanese automaker’s consumer vehicle platforms.
In a recent call with analysts, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai signaled that Waymo is seriously considering expanding beyond ride-hailing fleets and into personal ownership. While nothing is confirmed, the partnership with Toyota adds credibility—and manufacturing muscle—to that vision.
Toyota brings decades of safety innovation to the table, including its widely adopted Toyota Safety Sense technology. Through its software division, Woven by Toyota, the company is also pushing into next-generation vehicle platforms. With Waymo, Toyota is now also looking at how automation can evolve beyond assisted driving and into full autonomy for individual drivers.
This move also turns up the heat on Tesla, which has long promised fully self-driving vehicles for consumers. While Tesla continues to refine its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, it remains supervised and hasn’t yet delivered on full autonomy. CEO Elon Musk is promising to launch some of its first robotaxis in Austin in June.
When it comes to self-driving cars, Waymo and Tesla are taking very different roads. Tesla aims to deliver affordability and scale with its camera, AI-based software. Waymo, by contrast, uses a more expensive technology relying on pre-mapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar and lidar (a laser-light radar), that regulators have been quicker to trust.

Read more