双语阅读：蜘蛛丝的神奇秘密
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What’s five times as strong as steel， twice as tough as Kevlar， and can be stretched over thirty percent in length without breaking? The answer is spider silk。
什么东西的强度是钢铁的五倍，什么东西的.韧度是凯夫拉合成纤维(用于强化轮胎等橡胶制品)的两倍，什么东西在拉伸自身长度的百分之三十后仍完好无损?答案是蜘蛛丝。
Spiders make at least six different types of silk which they use for locomotion， protecting eggs， wrapping prey， and gluing pieces of web together。 Silk is not only strong， it’s biodegradable and produced at low temperatures and pressures， unlike many man made polymer fibers。
蜘蛛会吐至少六种不同的蜘蛛丝，用于移动、护卵、包裹猎物，粘连结网等等。不同于人造聚合物纤维，蜘蛛丝不仅坚韧，还具有可降解性质，同时还可在低温低压环境下产生。
Why don’t we use spider silk to make things?
为什么我们不用蜘蛛丝制造产品呢?
Unlike silk worms， spiders can’t produce much silk at a time。 It took eighty weavers and a million golden orb spiders five years to make a spider silk rug a little over twelve feet square。
蜘蛛无法像蚕那样一次性生产大量的丝。比如说编织一张12平方英尺的的蜘蛛网需要80个蜘蛛以及100万个金球蛛花花五年的时间才能完成。
Scientists decided to work on the silk quantity problem。 And， no， they didn’t create giant spiders。 First， they identified soft and crystalline components in the silk protein sequences that make it both stretchy and strong。 Once they identified these elements， they located the gene that codes for spider silk。
科学家决定研究蜘蛛丝的量，并且他们没有制造任何巨型蜘蛛。首先，他们对丝质蛋白序列里的柔软及透明晶状成分进行了鉴别，该成分能够加强韧性和强度。一旦科学家们鉴别出这些元素，他们便能定位编码蜘蛛丝的基因。
Genes
基因
With the gene in hand， scientists decided to use a common intestinal bacteria named Escherichia coli to help them。 They inserted the spider gene into the bacteria。 Because the protein was large， they had to do some metabolic engineering to enable the bacteria to produce it。
成功定位基因后，科学家决定使用一种普通的名为大肠杆菌的肠道细菌来帮助他们，他们将蜘蛛基因植入大肠杆菌中。因为蜘蛛蛋白较大，所以科学家们不得不实施一些新陈代谢工程来驱使细菌对其进行生产。
In the end， they made spider silk， but it wasn’t as fine as the real thing。 That’s because spiders enhance the uniformity of their silk as they pull it from their spinnerets。
最后，大肠杆菌制造出了蜘蛛丝，但是成品的质量并不如真实的蜘蛛丝那样好。这是因为蜘蛛在从吐丝器官里拉出蛛丝的同时也加强了其韧性。
The pulling process wasn’t replicated in the lab until scientists developed a device to mimic the fiber-pulling step。 They have now created a thread rivaling natural silk。
直至科学家发明了一种能够模仿蜘蛛拉丝的工具，这一过程才能得以在实验室重现。现在他们已经创造出了能与蜘蛛丝媲美的天然丝。
This great fiber could soon be used for violin strings as well as bullet proof vests。
不久以后，这种优质人造天然丝便可用于小提琴弦或防弹背心的生产中。
