Nature@Noon: Beyond Bio-Steel

How Spiders Can Inspire New Building Designs, Sustainable Materials, Optics — and Make Our Lives a Heck of a Lot More Interesting and Fun

Spiders recently grabbed headlines after engineers showed that, ounce per ounce, their silk fibers were five times as strong as steel.

But spiders do more far more than simply create super-strength materials. Scientists have named more than 45,000 species of spiders in the world. They estimate that more than 45,000 additional species await discovery — and with them whole new worlds of ingenious strategies that could inspire sustainable innovation, from structural engineering and optics to sustainable materials.

Join Tucson arachnologist Gita Bodner for a fascinating hour of storytelling about the arachnids among us. In this hands-on workshop, get a close-up look at live jumping spiders and other critters from the NatureMaker collection.

Nature@Noon is a workshop series that explores the collection of ASU’s new NatureMaker library and its potential to inspire sustainable innovation. NatureMaker is a collaboration between The Biomimicry Center and the ASU Library.