Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 4501

A few nights ago, my family and I were playing Trivial Pursuit 2000. It was o.k., though most of the fun came from laughing at each other. I do have to say, regarding the sports and games section: your success depends on correctly choosing one of the following answers for any given question: Joe Montana, Carl Ripkin Jr., or Mark McGuire. Answering "Game Cube" and "Lara Croft" worked for two questions, but those are notable exceptions.

One of the questions led to a lot of bizarre speculation on our parts, as we tried to imagine a spider and a goat doing the nasty. I wasn't sure if TP 2000 was just having a joke at our expense or not, so I googled it.

The following copy-and-paste is brought to you, courtesy of idle curiosity and a nasty headcold. I am not looking forward to sleeping all propped up tonight like that guy from Mask. Oh, and whenever I get a cold, my skin dries out and starts peeling off.
Hoorah!


Genetically Altered Goats Produce Spider Silk
from http://www.howstuffworks.com/news-item38.htm


Scientists at Nexia Biotechnologies in Montreal have discovered what happens when you cross a spider with a goat. The answer: a stronger bulletproof vest. The company has bred dairy goats with a spider in order to produce a unique protein. This protein will be extracted from the milk to produce silk fibers, called BioSteel, for bulletproof vests, medical supplies and space equipment.

Earlier research performed at the University of Wisconsin found that spider silk is an ultra-strong material that has the flexibility to hold 400,000 pounds per square inch without breaking. The fiber created by spinning this silk would have several industrial and medical applications, such as making lighter and stronger bulletproof vests, improving the strength of automotive and aerospace components, and providing more biodegradable and stronger wound closures.

These silk fibers are composed of proteins that are produced in the spider's silk glands, which are anatomically similar to a goat's mammary glands. In both glands, epithelial cells manufacture and secrete water-soluble, complex proteins in large amounts.
Photo courtesy of Nexia Biotechnologies
Spider cells are injected into a goat's egg.

Nexia took this research and applied it to dairy goats by injecting a spider gene into a goat's one-cell egg before it was fertilized. This spider gene then becomes just one of 70,000 genes in a goat's body. In adult female goats, the spider gene is activated during lactation and turns off when the animal is finished lactating. The result is that one goat can produce five grams of silk proteins per liter and can produce up to a liter and half per day.

Before now, the ability to harvest large quantities of the silk from spiders has been hampered by the small amount of silk spiders produce. This new technology, however, enables the genetically altered goats to produce large quantities of spider silk proteins in their milk. The proteins can then be extracted from the milk and spun into fibers.

In January, Nexia announced the birth of two "BioSteel Goats" named Webster and Peter, the first goats confirmed to carry a single spider silk gene. On June 19, 150 of these genetically altered goats arrived at a former Air Force base in Plattsburgh, N.Y., where they will be housed in 15 old weapons-storage buildings that have been converted to holding pens, reports the Plattsburgh Press-Republican.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: seattle-ish
Posts: 14252

I think I remember hearing about this a while back, but its still fucking weird.
makes me wonder what other animals theyre screwing with genetically.

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: La Florida
Posts: 20819

I heard they put firefly genes into tobacco plants so they can harvest them 24 hours a day many years ago.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: clinging desperately to my guns and religion gonna kill me some foreigners because i remember 9/11
Posts: 23153

I want a mutant goat-spider beast.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 4895

i remember posting this last year

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Sharon, TN
Posts: 4105

You think its wierd getting silk from a goat, just wait till they start making giant room sized titties floating a vat of saline to produce the stuff wholesale. It'll then be wound and drawn for use as bridge cable, and even the beanstalk. Yes, a beanstalk. We capture a rock in space, and from it, slowly drop the silk back into the atmosphere until it touches the ground. we then run weaving robots up and down the strain to make it bigger. As the stalk grows, we start to move the rock faster and faster in geo-orbit. Eventually the rock will pull the strain tight from centrifucal force enabling us to take a elevator into space.

Anyway, enough nerd talk.

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"I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar."

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Registered: Aug 2000
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that is the worst theory of how space elevators will come to be i've ever heard, and normally im with you on these crazy people rants, but that one is just not how a space elevator will come to be

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location: 0.50
Posts: 10035

SPIDERGOATS.
old news, but pretty damn cool. they should modify women's breasts next so they can shoot webs also.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Sharon, TN
Posts: 4105

quote:

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Originally posted by tack
that is the worst theory of how space elevators will come to be i've ever heard, and normally im with you on these crazy people rants, but that one is just not how a space elevator will come to be

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
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This thread has taken a turn for the bizarre.

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Registered: Aug 2000
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we'll just trade our cow for some spider-goat eggs, plant them in the ground and wait for the stalk to grow overnight, duh

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Registered: Dec 2002
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quote:

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Originally posted by Timeenoughforlove


You got a better idea smartguy? Silk beats steel in tensil strength, how the fuck else would it get done? Elighten me, and prove you are the better mind over Sir Isaic C. Newton and Arthur C. Clark dear tackington. Please prove how the theory of Newton's physics of planatary motion and centrifical force, mixed with Clarks's great idea of the beanstalk would be wrong. No nonsequitor bullshit, give me the scientific proof it couldn't happen and prove to me why the idea originally presented by Arthur C. Clark is wrong. You can't without reaching for some bullshit straws on this one and you know it.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Sharon, TN
Posts: 4105

SimpleSimon- I freely admit I was wrong about the source of the idea of the beanstalk. Where I had heard of it first was from Clark's story and the numerous articles he wrote about it. I'll read more about Konstantin Eduardovitch Tsiolkovsky and Dr. Robert L.Forward as they both seem quite interesting.

I have heard the idea of the carbon nonotubes before and think they may indeed work (If they could be grown long enough). But I alo think the idea of using silk would be just as viable if it was tweaked somehow but then again, I admit I'm no scientist. Anyway, thanks for the info.

And Bunkum, your right, the thread did turn wierd. I need to quit posting fitshaced.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 36091

Geosynchronous orbit itself is normally attributed to Arthur C Clarke, however (which would seem to be essential to the space elevators idea).

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Registered: Dec 2002
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Tsiolkovsky acknowledged the importance of geosynchronous orbit in his article in 1895, having solved the necessary equations to establish the appropriate height above the mean surface of the earth. His proposal was to place what he called a "castle" at that height.

Clarke did not originate the idea of geosynchronous orbit - rather, he originated the idea of placing a communication relay satellite at that orbital altitude, thus making the problem of focusing transmitters upon it much simpler.

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