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.

Japan-based biochemist Ali Malay has long questioned traditional theories about how spiders make their silk. “The prevailing hypotheses seemed like magic, because, according to it, you suddenly have ...

While spider silk proteins are something you can make in your garage, making useful drag line fibers has proved a daunting challenge. Now, a team of scientists from Japan and Hong Kong are closer to ...

Stronger than steel and more eco-friendly than plastic, spider silk is an alluring substance for material scientists. 1 However, researchers know little about the proteins that comprise it and how ...

Spider silk occupies a distinct place in natural materials science for its combination of mechanical strength, toughness and fineness. These protein fibres have evolved over hundreds of millions of ...