And fiberglass that are incredibly stable with a little help from nature researchers are now developing a range of high tech materials with some amazing characteristics. This is the inspiration for what could be the super material of the future. Spider so this researchers all wrapped up its stronger than steel yet more flexible than rubber natures High Performance raw material but obtaining the soap directly from spiders is difficult even in tiny amounts it could never be profitable. At the university of by right in southern germany thoma scheibel has been researching potential industrial applications for a super silk. Weve made some decisive breakthroughs first we managed to recreate the raw material both in terms of mechanical properties and scalability that means it could be made on an industrial scale second we made the thread and not just any threat we made thread the way spiders make it with all the properties it has in nature or maybe even slightly better ones. Scheibel develop the process using gut bacteria that have been genetically modified to produce silk proteins the silk is spun out of this group. That happens when a phosphate compound is that it it causes the thread in the protein secreted by the bacteria to solidify the end product is artificially generate its the silk they use to wrap their prey for example has a very smooth surface that makes it hard for germs in fun guy to gain a foothold its like a natural plastic wrap that could have medical applications for screenings i do seans i just love the ancient greeks knew that spider silk helped wounds heal that it didnt trigger an immune response. Christy even described it in her miss marple books how spider webs can be used to cover a wound so they heal faster. But if this. Science is now helping us to understand whats behind the phenomenon. That involves the surface structure of the spider silk thats how an idea was born to apply it to existing implants and equip them with a protective shield. And then they wouldnt be recognized by the bodys Defense System the immune system. With the help of modern three d. Printers the spider silk proteins can be applied to surfaces. In the future scientists want to print parts of or it could for example help replace damage skin. Into. Your own well in addition is to take things a step further we want to use spider soca scaffolding for instance to replace diseased or damaged skin tissue. To do that we take spider silk and mix it with a patients own cells creating what we call organic ink. Comment and just like ink it can be printed by a printer so the silk in the cells are printed simultaneously. By the silk protects the cells during the printing process and afterwords it provides a framework for them to incorporate into the new environment allowing them to grow into new skin tissue. The ten tiles strength of the strands that spiders hang from called drag lines are of great interest to developers trying to design High Performance textiles but how much force can drag lines withstand we put it to the test the basket hanging from this toy crane has suspended from a thread made up of forty individual strands of spider so. A hundred grams is no challenge. Even double that weight poses no problem. At three hundred grams the test ends abruptly show. That was just too much for the motor on it. But even after the toys motor gives out the spider still keeps on going up to four hundred grams. And another characteristic makes spider so the source of interest even though its weather resistant it decomposes quickly in the presence of certain enzymes. Doesnt hide it is that its important to remember that were working with a technology we developed just ten years ago spiders about millions of years to do it and i believe that were going to solve many more mysteries when it comes to spiders which will in turn lead to many new applications. That secret. When it comes to the amazing abilities of spiders there are so might just be a beginning. Speaking of amazing abilities these social insects also have plenty of them. Humans have been harvesting honey for thousands of years so its somewhat surprising that we know so little about the secret life of bees now a researcher in the german city of boards book once to change that. This robot is a state of the art Research Tool fitted with six cameras and a range of sensors its able to record the activity of these bees inside their natural habitat. B. Colonies are actually complex social units biologists call super organisms. The robot documents how the bees construct their hive which weather conditions they prefer to fly in and whether they sleep at night the researcher hartmut feel a from the university of whats bergen germany has spent months building this high tech beehive he wants to create a live stream so people can watch the honeybee superorganism in action. Here hopefully its what we hope it will give us deeper insights in the bee colonies than ever before classic research has generally focused on the frame system used by amateur beekeepers at home but were taking a new approach using a larger structure that provides space for the robot to observe the honeycombs inside the hive its the first of its kind its completely innovative and were constantly receiving new data thats never been available before for us on his cave. The technology is called smart hoboes which stands for honey bee online studies the system is connected to the internet and can even record the swarm at night using thermal and in peru red imaging cameras. The robot also detects light humidity and temperature since the wooden enclosure protects the hype from wind and weather researchers can study the bees without disrupting their natural behavior. Because smart who provides a continuous feed youre not limited by what time of day it is you can log onto our video archive at all hours i do it all the time when i have a spare minute i go to the website on my smartphone and watch the videos. So often on the. Phone. To the scientists. Size the bees set up their hive much faster than expected. And now everyone can watch how they do it. Even here in a cafe in bavaria caught must feel its creating a buzz with the locals. And he logged on to the hobos website and shows them the fascinating life of bees. Him on commitment anyone can fart as if eight men and women one thousand young and old and Young Children students beekeepers retirees everyone can join a using any device people can access the site with all the videos and data. Anyone can become the researcher so far from that. Of course there are also bona fide scientists involved. The bees settled in last july kicking off the Research Project the first results are to be published later this year but until then robot researchers will keep busy measuring weighing counting and most importantly recording the inner workings of the bee world. Lots of helping hands or making a hobos project a success seems like a pretty effective way to conduct research what do you think about Citizen Science we ask you to tell us on facebook smiling benedict thinks Citizen Science is a brilliant way to participate in Research Projects and expand your horizons. Evins kumi wrote that Citizen Science breaks down preconceptions that science is hard. And that should encourage more women to be active in the field. According to subtle under your no we first need. Science communicators to explain science in simple terms that anyone can understand. Thanks for your comments. Over millions of years of evolution human beings have perfected the art of walking right. But what about other typical physical postures if you were from the philippines wanted to know more. Says you want to know. Why do people close their legs while sitting done. Well theres no known scientific reason for it is the effect is how tough on people is pretty clear. Its a form of body language when it says this is comfortable although my legs are crossed im feeling relaxed. Role men tend to play their legs. Women less so. Some doctors say its a matter of biology and generally have now were hit on their hip joints are shaped differently therefore so the theory its harder for them to cross their legs. That explains why males like to spread race perhaps in the hope of demonstration virility truck to miss today however it displays like these are less acceptable in cities like new york and madrid theres been calls for a bomb on mom spreading and many people say mons breading is nothing more than macho posturing and kind of body language used to reinforce gender stereotypes of male dominance on females limits of. Crossing your legs sends a much discreet more. Message and is often labeled a typically feminine pose you could extend she waits the shape of the body while also preventing untoward glances. By the way the belief that crossing your legs is bad for your health isnt our ben myth researchers say doing it doesnt encourage barrick veins and he more than other positions. Itself feel free to just relax into it. If you have a science question go to our web site and send it in if we answer it on the show youll get our d. V. D. s featuring a lighthearted look at some of our einsteins most famous ideas. The most important thing is to never stop asking questions. When it comes to psychological disorders sufferers are often susceptible to depression. And while many Mental Illnesses can be traced back to factors like unresolved traumatic experiences a genetic predisposition or brain tumors some researchers now think that at least with certain disorders and unexpected trigger could be at the heart of the problem. You cant see them but they are everywhere. They human body so with microbes. You know there are ten times the number of pathogens in on and around us as well as there are cells in our bodies you know you go. Around half of us carry the pathogen that causes talk so plants moses. Herpesviruses tapeworms and many other parasites can also be found in humans to survive and reproduce they need a host or series of hosts to complete. Their lifecycle the disorders parasites cause arent easy to identify they also cause conditions that arent instantly attributable to parasitic infection like auto immune responses that affect the fibroid gland or bowel parasites can even cause Mental Health problems. Serious Mental Illnesses like clinical depression cant just be put down to problems in life. Theyre biological diseases. The same goes for psychosis like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Neurologist has spent his career exploring of things he suspects at least thirteen pathogens of playing a role in Mental Health disorders and diseases involving the immune system. Backstairs hypothesis has been lent weight by a large scale study from scandinavia involving more than three and a half million subjects. Over time the severe infections and auto immune diseases that bring people to the clinic also increase their likelihood of contracting all kinds of serious mental disorders. A radical thought but many doctors and psychiatrists dont agree they dont believe microorganisms are responsible for psychiatric disorders instead putting them down to factors like stress patients are often told their disease has an unknown origin which isnt much help. You can help the patient much more if you identify the cause which weve done in certain individual cases say struck the caucus bacteria are causing a chronic autoimmune reaction over years Something Like that can lead to clinical depression. It can be a big help venter lemonade the pathogen. If. Pathogens can remain in the body for years if the immune system is weakened that can lead to micro inflammations in the body that can eventually cause full blown auto immune diseases. Such inflammations can also develop in the brain and says that can trigger psyche. Its symptoms like depression or schizophrenia. Psychiatry. Its an issue he rejected best his theory as well but he had many patients that didnt respond to conventional treatments so phoniness took a chance and tried dosing some of them with cortisone to reduce possible inflammation. And. Weve now published several cases of patients that dont only have schizophrenia as it was defined twenty years ago but also have depression. After cortisone treatment putting it in simple terms like they were healed it doesnt and those experiences were very exciting for us in the clinic. With cortisone and the psychiatrist managed to help one patient within the space of a week whod been suffering from delirium and hallucinations for seven years. This is a tremendously exciting area of psychiatry right now because this insight opens up completely new horizons in terms of treatment. Patients are often relieved to be given a clinical cause for their condition society is more accepting of disease caused by microorganisms than illness provoked by psychological factors. Conflict do you have any conflicts or not addressing did something bad happen during childhood these are the typical questions that always come up. Why dont we ask is it like flu or an immune response for the patients idea of self that plays an Important Role categorizing where the symptoms came from. The extent to which pathogens actually are responsible for mental disorders isnt yet clarified that will take more research but one thing is clear. For a Certain Group of patients how big we cant say exactly we at least have new potential treatments. We still dont know what causes why. Range of diseases from schizophrenia and depression to rheumatism and inflammatory bowel disease but at least in some cases it looks like pathogens and parasites could ultimately be responsible. For. Bio diversity comes into its own in the worlds remaining primeval forests. Research in woodlands like these has long been difficult work. But now theres a more elegant less intrusive method in initial testing its proven effective in an ancient rain forest in Southeast Asia on one of the Worlds Largest diamonds. A nature reserve in the northern part of the island of borneo. Scientists are using this device to measure and map the primeval forest here its a laser scanner that emits light and pulses and records the echoes that bounce back they can be used to produce a spatial image of the area geoscientist schneider has set up the device. Later back at his office in zurich he analyzes the recordings. And this is an example of a scan we took in the forest you can see the scanners extremely High Resolution you really see every individual leaf and thats necessary if you really want to call it information on everything that exists here this is one of the first times weve been able to measure the forest in this way. The real issue is how is it even possible for so many different species of trees to coexist at so many levels and areas in the forest. Before deploying the laser scanner in the jungle of borneo schneider tested it for years back home in a Wooded Mountain range near zero. The scientists combine the readings from the laser on the ground with a laser reading from a plane flying over the same stretch of woodland. The vegetation reflects the light towards its source that echo is used to construct a three dimensional model of the forest that has information about the height of trees and amount of wood in the measured area were schneider and his colleague felix moores dog say the system is more effective than conventional forest inventory methods. With a laser we can cover large regions in a comprehensive way we cant do that with inventories theyre only made up of samples from spacek locations in some cases that causes errors because we have to extrapolate the data. Is a forest engineer hes collected data before with the help of large scale laser scans. This fall there clearly a quantum leap forward in the field laser data provides a real treasure trove for producing maps that help forest rangers with their daily tasks extensive high quality data is available now for the first time that it makes recognizing particular structures in the forest possible such as rejuvenation under a large trees layers of moss and dead wood wood the shape of terrain wish of course data like that is also useful for conservation its. The laser data shows the structure of the forest. But theres even more behind the technology. To help measure biodiversity in a particular area the scientists combine the laser data with another reading taken from the air with whats called a spectrometer. Since the plane isnt pressurized the scientists have to wear oxygen masks while taking the scan. The device measures light reflected back from the forest at different wavelengths that creates a spectral fingerprint of the vegetation. When the data is then projected onto a plaster model of the Mountain Range it opens whole new perspectives for research. You can see this ranges very characteristic its completely covered with forest with the blue areas stand out those are coniferous trees the green areas are deciduous trees. Schneiders approach and methods were recently published in the renowned scientific journal nature. As ish but if its actually its really the first time that a method like this is been used to measure extensively the same goes for accuracy with it you can see single trees and determine differences in the biochemistry of leaves the bush team went with until now that wasnt possible for such a large area when youre out in the field you used to have to go to a single tree and take the leaves and measure them but of course you cant examine an entire forest that way for the first time this new method really allows entire ecosystems to be examined it lets us look at biodiversity over a large area. If the laser method in borneo stands the test itll soon be deployed to the International Space station where it will be used to measure the biomass of the entire planet. For more from the world of science and technology go to our website and write to us on twitter and facebook we love hearing from you. On our next show well head to greenland where Climate Change is melting glaciers as the ice disappears it leaves behind huge amounts of fertile smudge a Research Project is looking for ways to profit from it that and other stories from the world of science next week on tomorrow today see you then. Car. Learn german with w. Anytime anyplace. With or with jo jo and her friends. And its going to go in the commission spreadsheets where she juggles up. With all over the world. Online and interactive. German to go. Slow and learn german for three d. W. They make a commitment. They find solutions. They meet in stronger. 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News live from berlin turkeys president threatens to attack the us that forces president heir to one says the force on turkeys border with syria is a terrorist threat because it includes kurdish fighters he says his attack may begin at any time also coming up dozens are dead and scores wounded after twin suicide bombings in central baghdad it comes just a month after iraq declared victory over the socalled Islamic State well have the latest from the iraqi capital for the