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Spider silk is “pound for pound” stronger than steel and has a greater elasticity than rubber. Such properties would make it a rather useful material for a large variety of medical and engineering applications if only it could be made in large enough quantities and with a useful thickness and consistency.
Biologists at the University of California, Riverside have identified the genes, and determined the DNA sequences, for two key proteins in the “dragline silk†of the black widow spider – an advance that may lead to a variety of new materials for industrial, medical and military uses. More here
http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=1612
Left by Julia on June 14th, 2007