Spider silk - stronger than steel!

Spider silk is one the toughest materials in the world. It is five times stronger than steel, 30 times more flexible than nylon and twice as elastic.

Spider silk has fascinated scientists for its toughness, strength, lightness and biodegradability. Compared to fibre produced by the silkworm, it's tougher, stretchier and more waterproof.

How is it made?

It’s not practical to harvest silk from live spiders. According to researchers, spiders are cannibals and fight to the death to guard their territory and therefore could not be raised in captivity the way silkworms are. So spider farms are out of the question.

The only other way to recreate the silk is using biotechnology in the lab. One company, Nexia, has done this and is developing spider silk for use in medical, military and industrial fields.

To recreate the silk, cells were taken from the mammary glands of dairy cows and modified with spider genes to produce the proteins used to make spider silk. The proteins were then stretched and spun from a water solution into fine silk fibres.

‘Super silk’

Synthetic spider silk could be used for all sorts of things! Artificial tendons, biodegradable fishing lines, bullet proof vests, parachutes and parachute cords.

As Dr. Turner, president of Nexia, the company creating the silk says, “It’s incredible that a tiny animal found in your backyard can create a material that’s one-tenth the width of a human hair that can stop a bee travelling at 20 miles per hour without breaking.”