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 ...

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

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Spider silk is prized for its unrivaled strength and toughness. But figuring out a way to mass-produce it is no easy feat. Spiders cannot be put to work to pump out the fibers the way silkworms can: ...

Researchers have, for the first time ever, used CRISPR gene editing on spiders. While the genetically-modified critters lack the ability to give you spidey senses, they do spin glowing silk. In a ...

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 ...

An curved arrow pointing right. Following is a transcript of the video. Narrator: A spider's web is more than just a spider's house. This homemade, glistening material has some spidey strength of its ...