Solution to PS 3 #5
The principal component of hair is the protein keratin which is made
up of bundles of a-helices. These helices are
held together by H-bonds along the axis which gives rise to hair's ability
to stretch along the axis (without breaking any covalent bonds). Silk is
made up of b-sheet structure which has all the
polyeptide in a fully extended formation. To stretch the structure
further along the peptide chains in silk would involve breaking peptide
bonds.
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