Pound for pound, spider silk is much stronger than steel, and can be used in a variety of applications from bullet-proof clothing and biodegradable bottles to surgical thread and artificial tendons. The only problem is when you put enough spiders together to farm silk, they tend to eat each other. In other words, farming spider silk is incredibly inefficient. That, however, could soon change after scientists figured out how to genetically alter bacteria to churn out super-strong spider silk. The process works by chopping up spider silk genes into smaller pieces that are re-assembled once they have been integrated into the bacterial genome. With their new methodology, the scientists managed to manufacture two grams of spider silk — just as strong as silk that actually came from a spider — for each liter of gene-spliced bacteria. That’s not all that much silk for an unsettling amount of bacteria, but the press release reports that it’s a vast improvement over other attempts to mass produce silk.If this research scales up, though, NASA may want to bring the bacteria along on future missions to space, giving crew members a new supply of materials for repairs.
Scientists are gene-hacking bacteria to produce bullet-proof spider silk
More of Today's Solutions
7 proven health benefits of ginger
For centuries, scientists have written extensively about ginger and its healing properties. This odd-looking root has been found to do everything from promoting healthy ...
Read MoreHealth data policies need to come into play
As technology's power and influence have grown astonishingly in the past 20 years, no one was prepared for its implications down the line. Data ...
Read More3 expert-approved ways to deal with middle-of-the-night sleeplessness
We’ve all been there— lying awake in the middle of the night with nothing to keep us company except anxious thoughts and preoccupations like, ...
Read MoreThe future of sustainable fashion: self-healing mushroom-based leather
The environmental impact of the fashion industry has become an increasing worry in a society where fast fashion has been the standard. But there ...
Read More
