The strength and robustness of spider silk have long fascinated scientists and engineers. Recent research indicates that synthetic spider silk could potentially outperform steel in a number of tests, ...

Understanding how the stretching process strengthens spider silk is a key part of helping design stronger, biodegradable, silk-inspired materials for various applications. When spiders spin their webs ...

Engineers developed a method to create synthetic spider silk at high yields while retaining strength and toughness using mussel foot proteins. Scientists have long been intrigued by the remarkable ...

Silk proteins generated by bacteria engineered to convert polyethylene into this multipurpose material. Credit: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Move over Spider-Man: Researchers at Rensselaer ...

Take a walk through a forest, and you’re bound to come upon a spider web stretching from one tree branch to the next. The intricacy of the web can leave a person in awe, but what is even more ...

While spider silk proteins are something you can make in your garage, making useful drag line fibers has proved a daunting challenge. Now, a team of scientists from Japan and Hong Kong are closer to ...

As one of the strongest materials known to science, spider silk regularly finds itself at the center of exciting engineering breakthroughs, and a new study involving a quick chemical bath could take ...

Silkworms have been genetically engineered with CRISPR to produce pure spider silk for the first time. The worms could offer a scalable way to create things like surgical thread or bulletproof vests ...

For years, the CRISPR-Cas9 genome technology has been reshaping genetic engineering, a precision tool to transform everything from agriculture to medicine. With its incredible efficiency, this ...

Researchers report on a new model for spider silk assembly. The key to spider silk 'spinning' is a combination of acidification and a process known as liquid-liquid phase separation, or LLPS. Of all ...

The number of times I have walked into a spider web is pretty comical. At first, I saw them as a nuisance during my forest adventures, but upon a closer look with my macro lens, I began to notice that ...