Did you know that rubber conducts electricity ? Ok it's conductivity is 10^-14 s-m, but if faced with a kragagooogle volt of potential, it <i>will</i> conduct. Carbon fibre conducts rather better... which can be a worry if you are in a sail boat in a thunderstorm.. but to be a useful conductor we are looking for 10^6 s-m or better, better than, or close to copper. What does this stuff do? The article does not relate.
No evidence that the silk contains graphene, low n. Visually inspect the em cross section... Can you see a difference? The authors don't produce a quantitative measure of entropy in the pictures to justify the claim that they are different.
Use for a <i>skyhook</i>?<p>A <i>skyhook</i> is what? Dirt cheap way to
mass into earth orbit. How? Put a weight on a string, attach the string at, maybe, the equator of earth, put the weight into orbit, and let the centrifugal force of the weight
keep it in orbit and keep the string
tight.<p>Then to put mass into orbit, let it
<i>crawl</i> up the string from electric
power conducted from earth in the
string.<p>Main problem: Getting a sufficiently
strong string!
> Zhang’s team tested conductivity and structure after heating the silk fibers at 1,050°C (1,922°F) to carbonize the silk protein, and unlike untreated silk, the carbon-enhanced silk conducted electricity.<p>After that much heat, would this silk be useful for making fabric?
Is graphene even a thing? Last I checked it was still a magical hypothetical substance made with pencil shavings and duct tape (that's an exaggeration but only a mild one). Every now and then I see news about graphene being the next big thing, like, very soon, but the results I see fail to prove that it's even an actual substance, and the evidence is the lab that made it swearing that it's totally a thing.