[Bold text contains links] There are now well-developed phylogenies tracking the evolution of spider webs using genomic and phylogenomic information (such as those below). This is great, as we now can easily discern trends, such as the repeated loss and gain of the orb web, that were not able to be gleaned from any web …

Between December 10 2022 and January 17 2023 I presented three talks/seminars: to the 10th China International Silk Conference (Dec. 10), then to RWTH Aachen University in Aachen Germany (Jan 10), then to King’s College London (Jan 17). As the contents across the presentations were similar and broadly covered the activities of the Spider Silk …

I checked my Blog online a few days ago and saw that I hadn’t posted anything since early November. At that time things went ballistically crazy as the various teaching assessments, marking and other things all happened at once, added to that a bunch of assessments were due for the data science course I’m taking, …

Hello. Here is a youtube link to my recent chat with the Engineered Matter Labs (eml.pubpub.org): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBA-mkW7VRo On the timing of these blogs, I am finding it hard just at the moment to find the time out to sit down and write something week in week out. I nonetheless intend to get back to it and …

On Friday October 14 2022 I was interviewed by Chris Mitchell on ABC News radio. The primary purpose was to discuss the release of the ‘Silkomics’ database (at https://spider-silkome.org/) and its importance, but we also discussed some general applications of spider silk, so I thought it quite appropriate to include the discussion as this week’s …

On Thursday 23rd June 2022 Patricia Flanagan from the UNSW Art & Design Faculty invited Associate Professor Patrick Spicer and myself to speak at a forum called speculative textiles. This was hosted by our friend/former student and Founder of SynbioTe, Ismat Kabbara. We discussed the future of materials generation, industries such as fashion and synthetic …

For this week’s blog I had a chat with my business cofounder at Spider & Silk Supply, Vic Chang. Vic is a business graduate from Tunghai University in Taiwan (where I did a postdoc between 2010 and 2014). Since he is not a silk researcher or has expertise in materials science, chemistry, biology, or engineering, …

The 2018 “Uruguay Lectures” in Rivera, Uruguay, were a very important academic event to come to South America for many reasons, among them the concept of putting in a bid for the 2022 (which became 2023 due to COVID) World Congress of Arachnology (which Uruguay was successful in attaining) was first discussed. The Springer book …

I thought I’d open the first official blog with a small discussion about the actual ‘Uruguay Lectures’ that happened in Rivera in 2018. I thought I will get a student’s perspective on these first. I therefore had a small chat with David Chamé Vázquez, who attended the lectures as a PhD student. David has since …