Today’s interesting fact has to do with Spiders and the thread they make.

Spider thread has five times the tensile strength of steel and is stronger then even the best currently available synthetic fibres.

It has been shown that if you have enough silk it is better than Kevlar in bullet proof vests and weights considerably less.

The genes that produce spider thread have been added goats in the section that produces milk, and they have produced some spider silk by extracting it from the milk these goats produce.

They have also added different genes to various bacteria and are hoping to produce the chemicals that get mixed to produce the silk in larger quantities.

Once they have the chemicals needed in large enough quantities all that will be needed is something that reproduces the spider’s spinneret.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with Ultraviolet light.

This came about because of a question from my work colleague Saghir.

Ultraviolet light often abbreviated as UV, has shorter wavelengths than visible light.

UV is invisible to the eye, being filtered out by the lens.

It causes sunburn, cataracts in the lens, and has been shown to cause skin cancer by causing damage to the DNA of skin cells.

Much of UV light is blocked by the ozone layer.

Where this layer is depleted, increased skin cancers and cataracts have been noted in both people and animals.

They've been using UV light to deactivate micro-organisms in wine that would normally spoil the product.

The UV light doesn't necessarily kill the microbes but instead damages them in a way that they cannot reproduce and they stop growing.

Recently, this process has been used as an alternative to pasteurisation for milk.

The pasteurisation process currently used doesn't kill all the microbes that can be found in milk, and can cause chemical changes in milk, which some object to.

UV light does stop the microbes in milk that pasteurisation doesn't get rid of, and doesn't cause the chemical changes in the milk.

The use is being piloted and if all goes well it may replace pasteurisation.

You get two today, because I missed a work day out:

Today's interesting fact has to do with Hard Water.

Hard water is considered hard because dissolved mineral content in the water.

When heated this mineral content can precipitate out, and forms the scale found in our kettles and other water heating equipment.

When it comes to cooking, plumbing, washing clothes, boiling kettles, heating water, electric showers and bathing or showering, people don't like hard water.

Part of this dislike comes from the dissolved ions in hard water that makes it hard react with the chemicals in soap to create a sticky scum or curd, which is then left on the skin, clothing, surfaces or hair.

Clothes and sheets washed in hard water often feel rough or even harsh to touch.

But hard water can be good for your health in a number of ways.

A study done in 1984 states:

'New results based on changes that have taken place in water hardness and in cardiovascular death rates between 1961 and 1971 in the county boroughs of England and Wales indicate a significant trend for men, in the direction of decreasing cardiovascular mortality with increasing hardness, but no trend for women. The trend in male mortality appears to be specific to cardiovascular disease. The results are similar to those of the earlier study and support the hypothesis of a weak causal relationship between the hardness of drinking water and mortality from cardiovascular disease.'

With fewer people drinking milk and eating milk by-products, studies have also suggested that hard water be an important source of the calcium and magnesium needed in our diet.

So while soft water can be good for washing clothes, hard water might be better for you to drink.