«All other known springs, biological and nonbiological, lengthen in a way that is directly proportional to the force applied to them only until they have been stretched to about 120 percent of their original length. At that point, you have to apply more and more force to stretch them the same distance as before. But the piece of spider silk protein we focused on continues to stretch in direct proportion to the force applied until it reaches its maximal stretch of 500 percent»
says Taekjip Ha, the study’s lead researcher.

 

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Light Used to Measure the ‘Big Stretch’ in Spider Silk Proteins