Cross-sectional images (displayed in different colors) of a spider web have been merged into this 3D image and translated into music. Credit: Isabelle Su and Markus Buehler
Spiders are master builders and weave expert systrings into intricate 3D webs that serve as the spider’s home and hunting ground. If people could enter the world of the spider, they could learn about the construction of the web, the behavior of arachnids and more. Today, scientists report that they have translated the structure of a web into music, which could have applications ranging from better 3D printers to communication between different types and other worldly musical compositions.
“The spider lives in an environment of vibrating strings,” says Markus Buehler, Ph.D., the project’s lead researcher, who presents the work. “They do not see very well, and therefore they feel their world through vibrations, which have different frequencies.” Such vibrations occur, for example, when the spider stretches a systring during construction, or when the wind or a trapped fly moves the web.
Buehler, who has long been interested in music, wondered if he could extract rhythms and melodies of non-human origin from natural materials, such as cobwebs. “Websites can be a new source of musical inspiration that is very different from the ordinary human experience,” he says. In addition, Buehler and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology experienced a web through hearing as well as vision (MIT), with collaborator Tomás Saraceno at Studio Tomás Saraceno, hoped to gain new insights into 3D architecture and web design.
With these objectives in mind, the researchers scanned a natural spider web with a laser to capture 2D cross-sections and then used computer algorithms to reconstruct the 3D network of the web. The team assigned different audio frequencies to the parts of the internet, creating ‘notes’ that they combined into patterns based on the 3D structure of the web to generate melodies. The researchers then created a harp-like instrument and played the spider music in various live performances around the world.
The team also created a virtual reality setup that enables people to “enter” the web visually and audibly. “The environment of virtual reality is very intriguing because your ears are going to pick up structural features that you may see but not immediately recognize,” says Buehler. “By hearing and seeing it at the same time, you can really understand the environment in which the spider lives.”
To gain insight into how spiders build websites, the researchers scanned a web during the construction process and converted each stage into music with different sounds. “The sounds our harp-like instrument makes change during the process, reflecting the way the spider builds the web,” says Buehler. “We can therefore examine the temporary order of building the web in audible form.” This step-by-step knowledge of how a spider builds a web can help design ‘spider-mimetic’ 3D printers that build complex microelectronics. “The spider’s way of ‘printing’ the web is remarkable, because no supporting material is used, as is usually required in current 3D printing methods,” he says.
In other experiments, the researchers investigated how the sound of a web changes while being exposed to various mechanical forces, such as stretching. ‘In the virtual reality environment, we can start pulling the web apart, and when we do, the tension of the strings and the sound they produce change. At some point, the strings break, and they make a funny noise, ‘says Buehler.
The team also wants to learn how to communicate with spiders in their own language. They recorded web thrillers produced when spiders performed various activities, such as building a web, communicating with other spiders, or sending courtships. Although the frequencies sounded similar to the human ear, a machine learning algorithm correctly classified the sounds into the different activities. “Now we’re trying to generate synthetic signals to basically speak the language of the spider,” Buehler says. ‘If we expose them to rhythmic or vibrational patterns, can we then influence what they do, and can we begin to communicate with it? These are really exciting ideas. ”
The researchers presented their results today (April 12, 2021) at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS Spring 2021 will be held online April 5-30. Live sessions will be presented from April 5 to 16, and content on demand and networking will continue until April 30. The meeting contains nearly 9,000 presentations on a wide range of scientific topics.
The researchers acknowledge support and funding from the MIT Center for the Arts, Science and Technology; the National Institutes of Health; the Research Office; Tomás Saraceno Studio; the National Science Foundation; MathWorks Engineering Society; and the Army Research Office.