Can Spiders spin a web in space?
NASA ran a competition for school children
to suggest experiments that could be done in space, and this question won.
So NASA sent a spider and lots of flies up
in the space shuttle.
At first the spider created very messy webs
but just as Robert the Bruce noticed the spider tried, tried and tried again,
and eventually created working webs in weightless conditions- isn’t that
amazing.
I discovered this incredible fact at the
Smithsonian air and space museum in Washington DC. I had taken a few days holiday
after attending the 1st Biotensegrity Summit and 4th International
Fascia Research Congress and on my last day decided to avoid the center of town
and stay close to the airport and this ‘overflow’ museum in Dulles hit the
spot. I was totally blown away by the scale of the building and the exhibits,
which included a space shuttle! In one of the exhibit cases was this story
about the spider.
Why am I telling you this?
Because the concept of tensegrity explains
how the spider could build a web in space.
It’s appropriate that I was in Washington because tensegrity sculpture
is celebrated at the Smithsonian Hirshhorn museum. Also, it was in Washington that Dr. Stephen Levin put the concept of
tensegrity and living architecture together and invented the area of science
called Biotensegrity. Dr. Stephen Levin was honoured at the 1st
Biotensegrity summit and spoke about his ‘eureka’ moment.
What is tensegrity? Buckminster Fuller created the word
tensegrity out of two words tension + integrity, inspired by the sculptures of
Kenneth Snelson.
In Stephen Levin’s own words (2009)
”
Tensegrity structures are omni-directional, independent of gravity, load
distributing and energy efficient,hierarchical and self-generating. They are
also ubiquitous in nature, once you know what to look for.”
A Snelson tensegrity model, The Needle,
stands in the gardens surrounding the Hirshhorn museum, it is elegant and light
in construction. The compressive elements float in the air, supported by the
tensional elements. It satisfies both the eye and the intellect, I can see why
Stephen Levin was so fascinated by the structure; you cannot tire of its
simplicity.
Dr. Levin was looking for a reason why
along with dinosaur footprints we do not find tail marks. The tails of
dinosaurs are very long and the absence of tail marks means that they must have
been held clear of the floor at all times. From his musings the concept of
biotensegrity was born. The
concept explains why geese can fly with their necks stretched out long in front
of them. –and a spider can spin a web in space????
In the earths gravitational field life uses
ground force. Ground force opposes
the gravitational downward force to provide tone tension and stability. Our
bodies, along with every other living structures, continually negotiates these
two forces using the biotensegrtiy concept, but what happens when ground force
and gravity is taken away? When man first went into space one of the ways the
body reacted to weightlessness was to lose some of the compressive structure,
in particular the bones, and astronauts returned with varying degrees of
osteoporosis. Subsequent space missions introduced weighted exercises to
counter this side effect of weightlessness.
So how did the spider spin a web without
ground force and gravity? Well at first it didn’t, the spider had to work it
out. A true tensegrity model is
self supporting, it can be picked up, turned, compressed and still return to or
maintain it’s shape. I doubt the web could be called a true example of
biotensegrity because it needed to be attached to something, however the spider
can. On a micro level (cell) and macro level ( whole organism) the
biotensegrity concept explains how space is surrounded and stops the
cell....Organism from collapsing in on it ‘self. In a body it creates space for
organs and liquids. It explains how Fascia (connective tissue) can both connect and separate and provide sliding layers, protecting delicate structures like blood
vessels during movement. This was beautifully demonstrated by Dr. Jean-Claud
Guimberteau. At the congress he screened a 2 hour video revealing what fascia
looks like in a living body, his beautiful pictures are a masterpiece of
patience and skill and show just what the ancient anatomists missed because
they did not have the technology to look inside a living body. Now we have the
technology we cannot ignore what we have found.
As movement teachers we can use this new
understanding of structure and anatomy. Understanding biotensegrity and the
fascial system is now within easy grasp. Biotensegrity explains how we can hold
yoga poses such as Warrior 3, the same biotensegrity model explains how we can
use Pilates machines to achieve seemingly effortless movements which are difficult to do on a mat. The idea that
this bodywide force transmission system, which is adaptable and continually
changing to accommodate changes in load and movement, uses the concept of
biotensegrity is liberating and exciting. Like the butterfly effect ( a small
movement in one place can escalate into a large movement elsewhere) moving one
part of the body effects the whole structure. From this we can show that
dysfunction in one area can be caused by a restriction elsewhere.
Biotensegrity is a model that all teachers
of movement should learn and understand, because knowing the model makes
creative teaching possible.
Like Selson’s needle we can all be
gracefully self- supporting, like the spider we can all persevere with our
practice and discover our own internal web and we too can
BE
AMAZING.
Tracey Mellor © 2015
