【設問】
(A) 次の英文の内容を，70～80字の日本語に要約せよ。句読点も字数に含める。
The silk that spiders use to build their webs, trap their prey, and hang from the ceiling is one of the strongest materials known. But it turns out it’s not just the material’s exceptional strength that makes spiderwebs so durable.
Markus Buehler, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, previously analyzed the complex structure of spider silk, which gains strength from different kinds of molecular interactions at different scales. He now says a key property of the material that helps make webs strong is the way it can soften at first when pulled and then stiffen again as the force increases. Its tendency to soften under stress was previously considered a weakness.
Buehler and his team analyzed how materials with different properties, arranged in the same web pattern, respond to localized stresses. They found that materials with simpler responses perform much less effectively.
Damage to spiderwebs tends to be localized, affecting just a few threads – the place where a bug got caught and struggled around, for example. This localized damage can be repaired easily or just left alone if the web continues to function adequately. “Even if it has a lot of defects, the web still functions mechanically virtually the same way,” Buehler says.
To test the findings, he and his team literally went into the field, pushing and pulling at spiderwebs. In all cases, damage was limited to the immediate area they disturbed.
This suggests that there could be important advantage to materials whose responses are complex. The principle of permitting localized damage so that an overall structure can survive, Buehler says, could end up guiding structural engineers. For example, earthquake-resistant buildings might bend up to a point, but if the shaking continued or intensified, specific structural elements could break first to contain the damage.
That principle might also be used in the design of networked systems: a computer experiencing a virus attack could shut down instantly, before its problems spread. So the World Wide Web may someday grow more secure thanks to lessons learned from the spidery construction that inspired its name.
【解答例】
(A) クモの糸の構造は複雑で，強い力を加えると堅くなる。また，巣全体を守るために一部を壊れやすくしており，この特性を建築やコンピューター技術に応用できる可能性がある。(80字)
/ 異なる素材が組み合わさったクモの巣の複雑な構造は，損傷が局所に抑えられ，全体の機能を損なわない仕組みになっており，耐震構造や情報網に応用できる可能性がある。(78字)
(B)
(1) エ
(2) カ
(3) イ
(4) ク
(5) オ
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