Spin Me A Yarn

I recently came across an article which was reporting on current trends in science. I am not sure of the publication date and to some of you it might well be old news but I shall briefly cover it here.

It brings to light some facts on a really bizarre and quite frankly, very scarey genetic alteration that is being experimented with. It seems that spider web has more far more tensile strength and withstands greater stress than steel or kevlar, the stuff they make bullet proof jackets and F1 motor racing / fighter jet cockpits out of, however the problem is that they can not get enough spider web silk from spiders to make it an economically viable proposition to use as a manufacturing substance.

So some of the boffins down in the lab have been implanting the gene of the spider that creates the web material into sheep so that it can be created along with the milk. The sheep are then milked and the silk web element extracted from the milk in far greater volumes than they had ever previously managed to garner. I personally find it almost too sci-fi even for my likings and the thought of crossing arachnids with the Sunday roast is the stuff of nightmares. Mind you the possibility of 8 legs of lamb to the beast is quirky.

I can imagine Farmer Bloggs going out to muster his sheep for shearing and not being able to find them because they are suspended in webs in between the trees. One can visualize them hanging by there udders from a branch, mad bulging blood shot eyes the size of cart wheels, glowing with a firey insanity like the coals in a smithies forge, flailing their hoofs to maintain vertical attitude as they drop down on unsuspecting sheep dogs, wrap them up in web and hoist them back into the treetops for future torture at their own leisure.

This would probably include entertainment like the dastardly sheep dog yo-yo routine, combining well known feats such as ``Round The World´´ and ``Walking The Dog´´. Sweet revenge ! Let´s face it, sheep were never meant to dangle from trees. It´s just not natural. I guess we might have to call them Flannel Webs or Fleece Fangs.

The article was in Die Zeit newspaper in December last year. You might also find it on the Web.(ha ha).