How do you know when you've discovered something new? I guess you just have to ask.

I think I've accidently found a way to re-liquify spider webbing. Comes back as a solid plastic-like film too. The odds I'm mistaken are high though, as I wasn't trying to do this.

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

Have you been playing with your positron accelerator again?

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---"Why do things have to suck so bad?" a friend once asked me.
"Because space is a vacuum and that's a lot of suck." I replied.
(Actual quote)---

1) write it down, carefully and completely.

2) try it again, then a third time.

Renaturing structural proteins without destroying the underlying structure is usually rarned difficult. If you have found a way to do it, kudos and a patent

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

Date and sign it also. If possible, get a witness to date and sign also.

can i ask what you were trying to do?

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Disclaimer: I have no theories, I am not smart enough to come up with theories. I only have a hypothesis. So anything I may write, statement or otherwise is just a hypothesis based on what I observe...

The difference between a correlation and a causation... Everyone who drinks water dies... Water makes things wet...

Fertilize the ornamental junipers. I only mention this because I've "done it" twice now, only really paying attension the second time.

I'd give all the details on how and why but I'm not at home and am using a small desktop to type on which is driving me nuts. I''ll elaborate when I get back home.

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

That was the last ever heard from Big Don. This iconic discoverer of a process that took centuries to rediscover has been compared to Fermat, to Galois and to Ugh, who first discovered fire but was burnt to death when he tried to walk back out of the volcano...
Wikipedia 3020

ha ha ha he hehe heh ^^^^^^^^^^^ <snort>

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Disclaimer: I have no theories, I am not smart enough to come up with theories. I only have a hypothesis. So anything I may write, statement or otherwise is just a hypothesis based on what I observe...

The difference between a correlation and a causation... Everyone who drinks water dies... Water makes things wet...

Me too.

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

Okay, it happened twice...

I was fertilizing with ammonium sulfate granules, with trace iron, manganese, and boron. In case there is some sort of catalyst effect.

In my (parents) juniper there are these spiders I've seen in the creases in the bark of redwood trees. They make dense, triagular shaped horizontal webs. The spiders themselves are primitive looking and look like they should be a ground hunting spider. Some getting to good size for a local spider, but no argiope. Over the years I've actually seen them fall out of their own webs brawling with even modest sized prey. It's like they don't have the whole web thing down yet.

Well I was broadcasting with one of those hand cranked spinny thingys and included the junipers as they needed it. I noted several of the webs had gathered fertilizer granules. Now as I stated earlier, the webs are densly woven and the spider walks on it more like a platform than it's more gracile sisters. you know, the ones that always look dusty.

Well now, after you put down dry fertilizer you have to water it in, which I did a sprinkler for fifteen minutes and afterward, while weeding I noticed something shiney. Like a piece of a glass christmas ornament. It was triangular but bellied out a little. I saw two or three more and realized it was the webs that had granules laying on them prior to watering.

Okay now the first thing I thought was the web acted like a scaffolding and the ammonium sulfate partially disolved, then resolidified. But what was weird was it was completely transparent. You couldn't see the web at all. I picked a piece up and it was like hard plastic like on a kids toy, those carded, bubble things. I thunked it twice with my forefinger. It didn't break. I put it down and went about my gardening. The next day they were all gone and I don't know why.

Now I did it again, as I was making my yard inhospitable to fairy rings. But this time dosed some on purpose to mess with. Same thing, watered for 15 minutes with a sprinkler and later they formed the glass again.

To find out either way on the scaffold issue I took one of the "glass" pieces and got it wet and it didn't dissolve but formed a thick limp film.

By the next day all the pieces are gone. I don't know if they crumble to dust or if something is eating them but the first time I thought I just wasn't paying attention. So I left them out overnight and all of them were gone. I'm also out of both the right kind of webs and ammonium sulfate.

If anybody else wants to try this I don't mind. Find out what's really happening.

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

Careful with those Don. They sound suspiciously like Hobo Spiders, which look like wolf spiders, but build webs like you describe. Now, according to a guy in the entomology dept. at the Univ of New Mexico, there are 4 species that have identical markings, only one is actually a hobo. The only way to make a positive visual ID is under microscope.

A bite from a hobo is almost as bad as one from a brown recluse. It has the same basic effects, killing all of the tissue around it. They start in the Pacific NW and have traveled to about central Utah/Colorado.

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A Nerd can figure out how long it will take the original Enterprise traveling at warp 6.5 to travel from Regulus to Antares.
A Geek will think he can use that to pick up a girl in a bar.
A Dork knows he can't pick up the girl with it, but will hang around for hours anyway, just in case she asks.
She might. You never know.

We read abaut it here first folks.

Now, what can we use it for?

there may be uses (and even similar processes already in existence) in materials science ...

you have a large number of variables yet to be determined, Big Don -

the chemistry, eg does it only work with those chemicals (in what concentrations?) - would, say, ammonium nitrate work at all?,
and water as a subsequent step, or would concurrent be as effective?
does it only work on those particular webs?

would they last longer if you didn't leave them outside to be eaten/whatever?

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If the webs are low to the ground only, about 1 feet max, then it's probably Hobo's. However if the web has a small sort of funnel the the spider hides in, and they are throughout the junipers, then it is just a funnel web spider. You only have to worry about Funnel web varieties if you are in Australia.

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"There is no problem that cannot be solved by a suitable application of high explosives" - US Army Demolitions School

http://worldsofothersuns.home.comcast.net/