Luca Alessandrini, a postgraduate student at the Dyson School of Design Engineering, has created a violin prototype using a composite material that includes silk spun by an Australian Golden Orb Spider.
Alessandrini explained in a recent interview, "The amazing properties of spiders' silk means that it serves many purposes. It's a home, a net for catching food and a means of communicating — via vibrations — when prey is ready to be pounced on and devoured. Spiders' silk has only previously been exploited as string in bows for instruments, but I've discovered that the amazing resonating property of spiders' silk has massive potential uses in instruments themselves."
See the prototype violin in action via the video below.
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