Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Silk is a fabulous fabric, but it’s also a material that can do so ...

Spiders hold the market for the strongest silks but are too aggressive and territorial to be farmed. The next best alternative involves incorporating spider DNA into silkworms, an expensive and ...

Silkworm thread has been turned into superstrong material that surpasses the strength of natural spider silks, according to research. Scientists have made it 70 percent stronger than a spider's silk ...

Spider silk—six times tougher than Kevlar and stronger than steel—has now been produced by an unexpected source. Spider silk is a biological protein fiber spun by spiders. Many of these fibers have ...

It's silk, a fiber that spiders and silkworms make, among others, but that humans have a hard time duplicating. And researchers are working to bring silk far beyond the realm of fancy stockings and ...

Silkworms have had their genetic code hacked, allowing them to create a new kind of silk not found in nature. The hacking goes beyond the usual forms of genetic modification, by fundamentally altering ...

On the surprisingly short list of animals that humans have figured out how to domesticate over the last 20,000 years, there are two insects. One is the honeybee, and the other is this little guy, the ...

Spider silk is a miracle material that could create super-strong fabrics — but it’s also extremely hard to make. Scientists have created a machine that can spin something almost as good, which means ...