Word: spidered
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...kinds of news: the gritty comeback and the sparkling debut. One sentimentalizes the past; the other sentimentalizes the future. Both burnish the legend of individuality in a largely collaborative medium. By this yardstick, Broadway ought to cheer sevenfold the last and best musical of the season, Kiss of the Spider Woman. Its U.S. debut next week will turn the clock back to high noon for four long-absent old hands aged about 60 and herald the dawn of three substantial younger talents...
...show's. Women are the core audience for musicals; without her, Kiss would be virtually all male. Moreover, her presence affords mainstream heterosexuals a comfortable entry into a violent and homoerotic world. Above all, her face, thrusting body and eerily insinuating voice -- a dagger wrapped in velvet -- keep Spider Woman vivid in memory, making it an event rather than just a show. This may not be Rivera's showiest role, but it is one in which she seems irreplaceable...
What gives spider silk its impressive array of qualities? What, for that matter, lends crack resistance to horses' hooves and adhesiveness to the secretions of mussels and barnacles? What makes rats' teeth sharp and insect cuticle hard? By answering such questions, Lewis and other researchers hope to usher in an exciting new era in materials science, one based not on petroleum products like nylon and plastic but on proteins synthesized by living, growing things. "Why go to an organic chemist for new materials," asks University of Mississippi biochemist Steven Case, "when nature has already produced some beauties...
Fine-tuned by 4 billion years of evolution, protein chemistry has a lot to recommend it. To produce Kevlar, for instance, requires vats of concentrated sulfuric acid that must be maintained at high pressure. But spiders produce silk in the open air using water as a solvent. "I am absolutely fascinated," says University of Washington materials scientist Christopher Viney, "that such an incredible material starts out as a solution in water, and all the spider does is squirt it out through a small hole. In the process, proteins that were soluble turn into insoluble fibers. Now, isn't that amazing...
...course, no car of the future will be made of rhino horn, just as no silk spun by spiders is likely be woven into designer clothes. For starters, it would take 500 to 1,000 spiders to spin out enough silk for one necktie. "And you probably wouldn't want to wear a necktie made of spider silk anyway," laughs zoologist John Gosline of the University of British Columbia. Reason: when wet, spider silk contracts 50%, a property that, in a necktie at least, might prove decidedly unpleasant on damp days. Armed with the tools of molecular biology, however, scientists...