The sun was barely above the horizon by the time I reached the meadow during my morning walk. The bright, flat light hit the tall grasses and wildflowers from the side, creating a silhouette effect that made them glow. But that wasn’t all: the horizontal light also backlit the dozens of orb weaver webs that stretched between the tall plant stems, bejeweled by the droplets of dew that had condensed on them as tiny, transparent, concentric strings of pearls.

I was entranced by these gorgeous structures. So—rabbit hole time. How do spiders build those things? How do they know to create THAT shape? Are the webs strictly structural and for capturing prey?

In this episode, we walk briefly through their remarkable physiology—and how scientists are looking intensely at spider silk for a range of applications.