#materials | Noutez

Why a spider uses more than one kind of silk

Many spiders produce different silks for different jobs, including structural lines, prey capture and egg protection. Their silk glands make protein mixtures that are processed into fibres through specialised spinning structures. A web is therefore not necessarily built from one identical thread repeated everywhere.

Nature & Earth♡ 0🔖 0

objects

What a pencil leaves behind on paper

A pencil writes by leaving tiny particles of its graphite-based core on paper. The paper's texture helps rub material from the tip and hold it on the surface. Ordinary pencil cores contain graphite mixed with clay and other ingredients; the writing material is not metallic lead, despite the familiar name.

Know Your Things♡ 0🔖 0

physics

Why cutting a bar magnet does not separate its poles

Cutting a bar magnet into two pieces normally produces two smaller magnets, each with a north and a south pole. The magnetism comes from aligned magnetic regions within the material, not from separate north and south substances stored at opposite ends. New ends become new pole regions.

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