Horizon, Playing God - Tues 17th January, BBC2 9:30pm
Spider-goat, spider-goat. Does whatever a spider-goat does! can he swing from a web?...
In tonights episode of Horizon Adam Rutherford meets a new creature created by American scientists - part goat, part spider. It's super-power - to produce large quantities of spider silk.
Spider silk is one of the strongest substances known to man. Prized for its lightness, elasticity and strength it has an abundance of untapped potential from its use in the manufacture of aircraft and racing vehicles to bullet-proof clothing and artificial ligaments. Until now the supply of silk has been limited to a few spider farms. Not only a large investment for little return, but voracious spiders have the tendancy to eat each other.
This came to the attention of scientists working in the field of synthetic biology, a new field with a radical claim - to break down nature into a kit of parts which can be rebuilt however we please, like lego. They extracted a gene from an orb-weaver spider and popped it into the DNA that prompts milk production in the udders of goats. Hay presto, not 8 legged wool spinners, but spider-goats capable of producing large quantities of silk in their milk - with the added bonus that they didn't want to eat each other.
Synthetic biology is already being used to make bio-diesel to power cars, and biosensors have been created to detect a range of substances including viruses, bacteria, hormones and drugs. Other researchers are looking at how we might, one day, control human emotions by sending 'biological machines' into our brains. To some this is just a front for Frankensteinian genetic tinkering, the most striking of which hit the headlines in 2010 when American biologist Craig Venter, announced that he had created the world's first synthetic life form paving the way for more extreme forms of genetic modification.
This should be a fascinating film.
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Meet Spider Goat
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