Genetically Modified Silkworms Spin Super-Strong Spider Silks
This stuff is some of the strongest and most elastic material on the planet, and it might just become commercially available.
Perhaps one of the most unusual and provocative ideas coming out of the bio-technology field today is the idea of industrial spider-silk fibers. The strands, or silks, of a spider is nature’s toughest, most durable, and most elastic material. In fact, the silks of some spiders are 10-times more resilient than Kevlar, while still being elastic enough to stretch to twice their original length. Oh, and they’re biodegradable. Being able to mass-produce spider silks would create an epic windfall for both biotechnological advances, as well as investment for the company that was able to do it. Fortunately, we’re making progress in that department.
There have been a few Herculean hurdles in the quest to be able to create spider-silk fibers on a massive scale. Although geneticists have been able to isolate the proteins within a spider’s silks (in fact, they’re so good that they can even genetically customize the silks for different properties), they have not been able to figure out how to turn them into fibers.
