Insects Are Smart Chemists
The smartest of modern chemists still can't match nature’s ability to produce strong, thin threads. Synthetic rayon can imitate silk's glossiness, but not its sheerness or strength.
In 1935, chemists came close to matching the efforts of insects when they made a glossy material that looked and felt as sheer as silk. It was called nylon. These days it’s so completely replaced silk in women's hosiery, that stockings are now known as nylons.
Many species of spiders and caterpillars produce extremely thin threads with higher tensile strength and greater elasticity than any yet made by chemists. In spiders, thread begins as a silky liquid. Abdominal pressure forces this material through muscular valves, changing it into a solid thread of uniform diameter.
Some species of spider have a regular array of other chemicals at their disposal. In addition to producing a strong sticky web to entangle their victims, they can also inject them with a venom that paralyzes them. This way they can enjoy a relaxing supper with no opposition from the victim. Other spiders use their fibre-producing skills to store their victims for later consumption. They either wrap their prey in a silk blanket or use threads beaded with glue droplets to hold them in place.
So next time you hear a chemist claiming credit for making so many new materials, you might want to mention that those tiny creatures still outsmart all of us!
If, in fact, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then we human beings must think a lot of the natural world. Nature has provided the ideas and motivation for several of humanity’s greatest achievements. While we have accomplished some marvels, we often can’t compete with the simplicity and sheer elegance of the way some creatures do whatever it was that inspired us to copy them.
The desire to do what others can do, if not do it better, seems to be the next thing to being embedded in our genes. What’s more, we like to do things our own way. This caresses our egos and makes us feel good about ourselves. It also puts us in difficult ethical positions for which we are unprepared. We do like to play God but we don’t really know enough to handle the job well.
We humans aren’t content with copying. We love to improve on things. We’ve been tinkering with genetics for centuries - from selective breeding to direct genetic modification. We’re a race of dreamers.
The desire to make things better than they are suggests that deep in our human psyche, we know that things are not right. For example, we accept disease as “inevitable” yet we do all we can to eradicate it and its negative consequences from our world.
There would be few in our world who could think of nothing to improve. Christians believe this is evidence of how far the world has fallen from it’s Maker’s original perfect design. Our efforts to correct imbalances, right wrongs, and improve on things in general show that we are indeed made in the image of God.
According to the Bible, God made everything in a state of perfection. When mankind rebelled against God’s authority, chaos ensued and we’ve been trying to fix things up ever since. But God has been more concerned with restoring the original state of perfection than anyone.
Human attempts at improvement have been centred on the symptoms of the problem. God’s response to the natural catastrophe that resulted from our rebellion goes to the heart. He made a way for that original rebellion to be reversed, by taking the consequences on Himself. No human can improve on that!tiate a relationship, we would do well to respond.
David Humphreys and Ron Hughes
