For the first time, scientists have successfully produced full-length spider silk fibers using genetically modified silkworms. With high strength and toughness, this silk has the potential to provide ...

Spider silk is an unparalleled material: It’s strong and tough, yet also lightweight and flexible. But getting spiders to mass-produce their silk for commercial purposes has proven nearly impossible.

Tougher than steel, lighter than cotton, and stubbornly elusive to produce. For decades, spider silk has been the material science has long promised but never quite delivered at scale. Now, a Michigan ...

Silkworms in a Japanese lab are busy spinning silks that glow in the dark. But these silkworms, unlike others that have been fed rainbow-colored dyes, don't need any dietary interventions to spin in ...

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: ...

A new page is about to turn in the age-old history of sericulture. Cuting-edge research using transgenic silkworms is making it possible to create new types of silk and pharmaceutical products. The ...

Researchers have succeeded in producing transgenic silkworms capable of spinning artificial spider silks. A research and development effort by the University of Notre Dame, the University of Wyoming, ...

Scientists have synthesized spider silk from genetically modified silkworms, producing fibers six times tougher than the Kevlar used in bulletproof vests. The study is the first to successfully ...

Testing positive for Covid (twice) and being put in quarantine for 28 days doesn't exactly scream "creative haven." But for ...

Silk is smooth, strong, and biocompatible, making it a prized material for many applications. Scientists have tried all kinds of tricks to improve silk or imbue it with new properties: They have fed ...

Silk is a naturally sourced fiber popular in textile applications not just for its beauty, but also for its mechanical strength, and one study has now reported that the gossamer threads become even ...

Those precious silk garments in your closet were made by the caterpillar of a fuzzy, white moth — thousands of them. Silkworms spin a cocoon with a single strand of silk up to 10 city blocks long.