a1409: goats milk and silk (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>

Corbetteers:  Below is the article from Christian Science
Monitor concerning goats milk and silk that was mentioned
several days ago.  I went to the CSM archives and bought
the article to share in the hope that having the article in
front of us would help with informed discussion.  I'm sorry
to say that it does not appear to be any kind of a "gold
mine" for the folks in Haiti.

Enjoy.

JD Lemieux


FEATURES, IDEAS
from the February 21, 2002 edition


The new Silk Road starts with goat udders

By Mary Wiltenburg

- Forget the catwalk. To see this season's most impressive
silks, head for the barnyard.

Last month, silk fans got their best news in a couple of
millennia when the journal Science published findings
indicating that goats may soon be producing spider silk.
The discovery, a joint venture of Montreal-based Nexia
Biotechnologies and a US Army research lab in Natick,
Mass., has for years been described as a "holy grail" of
materials science.


Spider silk, developed through 400 million years of
evolution, is light and flexible, and has at least five
times the tensile strength of steel. For the past century,
scientists have tried to reproduce its strength and
elasticity synthetically, with little success. Artificial
"silks," like polyester, proved poor substitutes.


Efforts to farm spiders and harvest their silk were also
futile - something that's no surprise to those who have
spent quality time with the reclusive arachnids. "Spiders
eat other spiders," explains Russ Smith, curator of
reptiles at the Los Angeles Zoo, and a dabbler in spiders.
Small male spiders live in particular peril, often doubling
as lunch for over-amorous mates.

Scientists thus turned to "biomimicry," developing new
technology based on models and designs in nature. They
extracted silkmaking genes from two spiders and implanted
them in cells from a cow's udder and a hamster's kidney.
Those cells secreted protein chains that formed a
crystalline silk filament like the one with which
Charlotte, in the only other documented instance of such
arachnid-farm animal cooperation, once famously scrawled
"Some Pig."

The material they produced is strong enough to be used as
sutures in delicate surgery. The team's next goal is to
strengthen the manmade silk so that it can be used to weave
bulletproof body armor. To produce enough protein for that,
scientists have implanted the silk gene in the eggs of
nanny goats, so that their female offspring will secrete
the protein in their udders. "All we'll have to do is milk
the goats," says Nexia President and CEO Jeffrey Turner.


Simple enough - sort of. Maria Tulokas, head of the textile
department at the Rhode Island School of Design in
Providence, wonders how this goat wrinkle might affect
another important issue: silk's mystique.

Until now, spider silk has never been used to make cloth.
Those "incredibly sumptuous, beautiful old fabrics" made in
China since about 2700 BC, and elsewhere, are woven from
strands of fiber spun by silkworms. Still, spiders have
always been bound up in silk's mythology. "The whole
process of [spider and silkworm] silk production is quite
miraculous," Ms. Tulokas says.


For many, turning goat's milk into silk seems at least as
incredible. Brent Karner, insect zoo coordinator at the
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, is thrilled with the
advance in silk technology - not least because it may give
the much-maligned spider an image boost. The implications
of the discovery for the future of goat cheese, though,
remain to be seen.


* Material from wire sources was used in this report.


(c) Copyright 2002. The Christian Science Monitor



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