The webs we weave: How Spidey science holds up in the real world

The spider is pretty amazing too. It has a built-in spinning organ, called the spinneret, usually located on the abdomen. Spiders use the spinneret to loop or knit their silk as needed, increasing its tensile strength. Scaled to human size, such silk could, as the movies suggest, bring a train to a halt.

The biotechnology arms of conglomerates such as DuPont and BASF had, in fact, been trying to produce a synthetic equivalent, but this has proven notoriously hard to do. Newer start-ups such as Kraig Biocraft and Bolt Threads are now working on creating such a twine for use in a range of things, from cables and bulletproof vests to artificial tendons in the human body.

Sling-shot: A real-world Spider-Man would need all the web he could weave, because there’s no way he could scale any walls without them.

At least 40% of Spidey’s surface area would need to be covered in seta (tiny hair-like structures that help geckos climb), if he wanted to carry his human frame up a vertical wall, scientists at the University of Cambridge concluded, in a study conducted in 2016 and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The seta, additionally, would need to be in contact with the wall at all times, which would make for a rather less streamlined suit (and a far less flattering one).

If he couldn’t bear the hairy suit, he’d need really, really large feet, Walter Federle, professor of comparative biomechanics at Cambridge and senior author of the paper, indicated in a statement. “Impractically large, sticky feet… European size 145 or US size 114.”

Spidey sense: The superhero’s extraordinary ability to sense danger does have a real-life equivalent, in spiders. While humans, and most other vertebrates, hear through sound waves that hit the eardrum and are converted into signals for the brain to process, spiders can detect the movement of vibrating air particles (which make up sound waves), through their webs.

A study by researchers at Binghamton University and Cornell University, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that some spiders even “outsource” their hearing to their webs, with the large nets of fibre acting as acoustic antennae. As they “listen”, one can even see them turn, crouch and flatten out in response to incoming sounds.

In the world of humans, researchers say, this could revolutionise microphone technology.

The bad guys

The Spider-Verse is filled with extraordinarily motivated mad scientists. Some of their gadgets have come to be in the real world too.

Green Goblin’s engine-less glider doesn’t exist, but Airbus’s experimental Perlan II winged glider comes close. With no fuel tank or jet engine, it rides atmospheric pressure waves. It soared to 76,000 ft above sea level, more than 2.5 times the height of Mount Everest, during a test flight in 2018. Because of weight constraints and reliance on the weather, it is currently used mainly for stratospheric research.

Parting shot

The biggest bug in the system is the fundamental premise. Few spiders bite. Of the 50,000-odd known species of spider, only about a dozen are equipped to break the skin in humans. If a spider did bite, the most one could expect is some terrible itching and hives on the skin, shivers and vomiting. There’s anti-venom for the venomous arachnids. All in all, none of the effects would last more than a few days.