Snails' teeth beats spider silk as nature's strongest material (2015)(smithsonianmag.com)
smithsonianmag.com
Snails' teeth beats spider silk as nature's strongest material (2015)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/spider-silk-loses-top-spot-natures-strongest-material-snails-teeth-180954346/
133 comments
Garden snails around seattle will absolutely bite you (teeny tiny bite) and draw blood if you let them crawl around on your skin.
Beware of strongyloids. Or apparently to maintain complexity of taxonomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angiostrongyliasis
Or rat (snail/slug) lungworm
Or rat (snail/slug) lungworm
A teenager in Australia died due to this after eating a dog slug as a dare.
I heard about that when it happened, but hadn’t realised it took nine years with a coma, paralysis, and seizures. It must’ve been horrifying for everyone involved, including the mates who dared him.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/teen-paralysed-even...
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/teen-paralysed-even...
Touchy subject and Im not commenting on this specific case that I have no idea about, but for this class of cases (ruptured spine, paralysis, coma) MAID seems better than prolonging life, especially if there’s no hope for full healthy recovery.
Any article with headings "Eye invasion" and "Lumbar puncture" is bound to be a good time.
Analogous to the keratinous denticles in a cat tongue, just much smaller in scale.
"try"? If it's harder than your skin it means it did, not tried.
Just because you succeeded doesn't mean you didn't try.
A steel door is certainly harder than my skin and also certainly can't be used to "bite" me or puncture my skin (save for crushing it given enough force)
Just because it's harder doesn't mean it necessarily has the strength to tear off skin.
Well that was more disturbing than I thought it would be.
> Thats’s comparable to a single strand of spaghetti holding up about 3,300 one-pound bags of sugar
What an odd example. A mid-sized car would have been much clearer.
What an odd example. A mid-sized car would have been much clearer.
I also thought that was weird. Then I learned it gets better. If you click through to the BBC article that was apparently their main source, the quote is this:
> Alternatively, as Prof Barber explained, it can be compared to a single string of spaghetti holding up 3,000 half-kilogram bags of sugar.
So the professor used an item that was familiar to his English audience (1500 kg=3307 lbs), then the Smithsonian writer tried to be helpful in converting the units, but switched to an item far less familiar to an American. I don't think I've ever bought a 1lb bag of sugar here, while a 500g bag is a little small but normal in the UK.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31500883
https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/sainsburys-white...
> Alternatively, as Prof Barber explained, it can be compared to a single string of spaghetti holding up 3,000 half-kilogram bags of sugar.
So the professor used an item that was familiar to his English audience (1500 kg=3307 lbs), then the Smithsonian writer tried to be helpful in converting the units, but switched to an item far less familiar to an American. I don't think I've ever bought a 1lb bag of sugar here, while a 500g bag is a little small but normal in the UK.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31500883
https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/sainsburys-white...
But everyone knows, by experience, what 3300 individual roughly one pound bags of sugar weighs and what sort of force is needed to hold it up. Mid sized car is ambiguous, and nobody saw anybody hold that up (seeing hulk doesn't count)
You think people are better at estimating what 3300 bags of sugar look like - as opposed to estimating the size of a car?
How often has anyone ever seen 3300 bags of sugar together in their lives, do you think?
How often has anyone ever seen 3300 bags of sugar together in their lives, do you think?
But what is it in football fields?
That's the usual measurement of size in the States and it's absolutely unbelievably ridiculous.
That's the usual measurement of size in the States and it's absolutely unbelievably ridiculous.
Do they? I don't recall ever seeing a bag of sugar in my life. I'm not a baker though so maybe that explains it.
A car is more easier to picture for me.
A car is more easier to picture for me.
> Do they? I don't recall ever seeing a bag of sugar in my life. I'm not a baker though so maybe that explains it.
Do you not go to supermarkets or grocery stores?
Do you not go to supermarkets or grocery stores?
You must be from the US.
I am from the US and buy bags of sugar.
What else does sugar come in? If not bags? I don't think I've ever bought sugar in something other than a bag.
What else does sugar come in? If not bags? I don't think I've ever bought sugar in something other than a bag.
Mid-sized European or American car?
The properly calibrated unit is a Volkswagen Beetle.
Well, obviously a European one. The American car is non-migratory.
I'm guessing this was initially '1.5 metric tons', and through a number of helpful and friendly conversions, ended up at 3,300 sugar bags.
Or a lift full of people.
Must be a british thing?
well that's just £3300 then, yeah?
Half that, 3300 pounds of sugar is roughly 1800 quid (retail) and wholesale is probably half of that.
I can't wait until our LLM agents spot these and substitute in our own favorite, personally intuitive format conversions appropriate for the scale.
I'd like this to be expressed in units of pallet(s) of standard cinder blocks.
I'd like this to be expressed in units of pallet(s) of standard cinder blocks.
> 3,300 one-pound bags of sugar
Ah, but how many one pound bags of concrete could it hold??
Why bags of anything? This is a poor way of communicating weight. Just say "a modern passenger car".
Ah, but how many one pound bags of concrete could it hold??
Why bags of anything? This is a poor way of communicating weight. Just say "a modern passenger car".
Sorry I only understand football field based units of measurement
It’s a real condition. For me it’s jet liners of various makes. I had to rewrite the quote as “0.005 Boeing 777’s” to be able to comprehend just how strong those snails teeth are.
Sorry, but that's what 14 (standard) pickup trucks of yak hair was invented for.
ok but what color is the yak hair?
Same color as the bike shed, obviously
Not from Unitzikstan I see
White, of course; that way the statisticians can dye them any color they want. But for ultra high precision I do recommend the Boeing system. But be sure to use the older models, before private equity firms replaced all the metal parts with zipties. If you can't find a quality Boeing (plausible), consider 1.1 Blue Whales (tricky).
fnordpiglet was being deliberately humble with the decimals. It's accurate down to the semi firkin. Not to be confused with a quarter Tod.
Ignore the redundant bike shed comment, as that fits precisely 3,300 one-pound bags of sugar. Anyone with a bike should know that.
White, of course; that way the statisticians can dye them any color they want. But for ultra high precision I do recommend the Boeing system. But be sure to use the older models, before private equity firms replaced all the metal parts with zipties. If you can't find a quality Boeing (plausible), consider 1.1 Blue Whales (tricky).
fnordpiglet was being deliberately humble with the decimals. It's accurate down to the semi firkin. Not to be confused with a quarter Tod.
Ignore the redundant bike shed comment, as that fits precisely 3,300 one-pound bags of sugar. Anyone with a bike should know that.
Wait, I can do that? Here I've been using Smoots this whole time (with great difficulty might I add).
Obviously it weighs 10,300 baseballs, which are 26 football fields long.
A football field is by far a better measurement than 3300 one pound bags of sugar.
Understandable, with how many there are to pick from, and the wiggle room in the longest ones -
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/As...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/As...
OP is talking about a football field, not a soccer field. It’s a common joke in America that things have to be measured in football terms.
In the “for what it’s worth” department, Brits called it soccer too. I have no idea why they swapped to football recently.
In the “for what it’s worth” department, Brits called it soccer too. I have no idea why they swapped to football recently.
whistles
3.3 kilopounds? That's a lot
3.3 kilopounds? That's a lot
whenever i see things like this i think its a tongue-in-cheek joke
more importantly: how many kilos of feathers versus how many kilos of steel can it hold?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fC2oke5MFg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fC2oke5MFg
Needs to be 3,300 bags of something I care about. Otherwise you are talking about nonsense or voodoo.
The main question is how many American football fields is that
12 nautical bushels per Fahrenheit
It’s more like half a modern passenger car these days.
How about
> 10x stronger than the jaw of a dog
> 20x stronger than a human jaw
> as strong as the jaws of a great white shark
?
> 10x stronger than the jaw of a dog
> 20x stronger than a human jaw
> as strong as the jaws of a great white shark
?
Those are crushing power, and while they use bad terms for it, they are referring to tensile strength specifically, which is totally different. I don’t know why the hell they chose a spaghetti strand though.
But how many times can it bite the area of Rhode island?
The crazy thing is that it is also equivalent to 33,000 0.1 pound bags of sugar.
"A modern passenger car" varies widely depending on what locale the reader is in. A passenger car in Jakarta is not at all the same as a passenger car in Los Angeles.
Can we just use Kilograms?
Can we just use Kilograms?
“NO!” - America
> Thats’s comparable to a single strand of spaghetti holding up about 3,300 one-pound bags of sugar
Is that cooked or raw spaghetti?
Is that cooked or raw spaghetti?
Why complicate matters with pasta at all when spider silk is, at least metaphorically and rhetorically, at hand?
As hinted at by its 2017 postscript, this article is a mess of incommensurable comparisons.
As hinted at by its 2017 postscript, this article is a mess of incommensurable comparisons.
Well if they’re quoting that as the failure point then by definition it cannot.
because as a reader, bags of sugar are more engaging to me than bags of concrete.
Yeah, I am quite certain I have an easier time visualizing a one-pound bag of sugar—which I have seen at the grocery-store/kitchen/pantry—versus a single-pound bag of concrete.
Staff Sgt. Sykes: [Sgt. Sykes is directing the recruits on how to judge distances] You take what you know, and then you multiply. Please don't use your dicks. They're too small, and I can't count that high. I don't wanna hear, "400,000 inches."
-Jarhead
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418763/
-Jarhead
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418763/
anything but the metric system.
1,497 one-kilogram bags of sugar.
Much better!
Much better!
[deleted]
I noticed that too. I feel like this might be a new way of laundering AI written text, just provide the quote verbatim as if the they believe it was actually written by the author.
This article is from 2015.
The AI is so good that it traveled back to 2015 and published this paper.
Skynet is real
If you ever watch these guys in an aquarium, you notice they're basically constantly chewing on things. I've wondered many times how they keep such tiny teeth in good condition if they never given them a rest, but, here's why. Nature creates such cool creatures
All I wanted was to see a picture of a snail's tooth.
Old Reddit now seems to require login to read.
Further down the drain we go.
Further down the drain we go.
Heard they were rolling this out, hasn't happened to me yet. wonder if it's a soft wall or simply rolled out to certain areas/IPs
just refresh a couple times, or try in private mode. I've seen it once a week or so ago and then it went away for good so far
Snails had a good run being ignored by everyone but the French and now we're smearing their slime on our faces and trying to turn their teeth into armor.
[2015], with a nice correction from 2017 about the differences between compressive and tensile strength.
And hardness. Diamond is hard but exactly because of that you can shatter a diamond with any hammer.
They say they’re taking about tensile strength at the footnote. But teeth would be more likely to be compressively strong. They don’t get pulled on much.
The whole thing seems very confused. Anyway let’s build space elevator?
The whole thing seems very confused. Anyway let’s build space elevator?
Given what they are talking about (mollusk tongue scraping rock) tensile strength is appropriate. The mollusk does f crush food between teeth - its teeth are on its tongue and scraped across rock.
Yeah, they're conflating strength, hardness and toughness all over the place.
Snails also make for very cool manuscript decorations. Not sure what those monks were smoking...maybe snails
I thought it was limpet teeth
Same thing, they clarify it right at the start of the very short article.
And they are delicious. Just don't chew it too much. Much tastier than spider silk probably.
Now we just need something to replace paper for a whole new rock-paper-scissors paradigm.
Next YC batch: "We're Mollusca and we're democratizing access to nature's strongest material"
Just find the proteins involved then manufacture them with yeast.
Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy
they're made of rock
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethite
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethite
"We dropped out of high school to build AI-powered snail teeth."
Do snails scale?
They certainly scale the fence my wife put around the garden. Then again, we haven’t done a good job of patching holes in the perimeter. Our DevOps team is too busy playing in the sprinkler to learn to read, let alone automate patching, but it’s on the board for next sprint.
I hate the word democratizing
[deleted]
Which is the less intelligent? Strong works when dumb.
I know people like to talk about “how smart” the butterfly or whatever is for “adapting itself” to whatever environment, and it is cute, but there is a practical engineering choice between delicate design and brute force.
I know people like to talk about “how smart” the butterfly or whatever is for “adapting itself” to whatever environment, and it is cute, but there is a practical engineering choice between delicate design and brute force.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.10332
If you put your finger in front of a garden slug it may try to eat it, it's a very odd sand-paper sensation but I never knew why.