Mutant worms engineered with spider genes spin silk six times tougher than bulletproof Kevlar

[pesco]

Originally published at: Mutant worms engineered with spider genes spin silk six times tougher than bulletproof Kevlar | Boing Boing

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[teknocholer]

You have the science fiction headline of the day.

[anon48584343]

To commercially produce the spider silk fibers, [biotechnologist Junpeng] Mi says he and his colleagues will need to cross-breed their research-grade silkworms with commercial strains that are used for large-scale silk cultivation.

[euansmith]

Charlotte’s Web 2: This Time It’s Tactical!

[LutherBlisset]

Before I say anything congratulatory: what do these mutant caterpillars feed on?

[Mister44]

Can they spin enough of it to make a viable fabric, though?

It is going to be an interesting future if we can learn how to program these sort of bio machines to produce specific polymers. Ultimately, will we even need a “worm”, or be able to build the bio building blocks to create these polymer replicating systems.

Its all very sci-fi terrifying and exciting.

Someone do an AI image of a David Cronenberg 3D printer.

[knoxblox]

[nagmay]

My guess would be mulberry leaves.

[Otherbrother]

@Mister44

Can they spin enough of it to make a viable fabric, though?

In a mythbusters test they needed 9-1/2 miles of thread to make a short sample of 25,000 threads in parallel which turned out to be able to support about 26 lbs. Twice the strength of steel by weight, but way more volume.

But I guess if they can already get viable amounts of fabric from silk worms at scale, it seems possible they could make it work with these mutant guys as well.

[ycleptShawn]

Maybe this will make good stillsuits?

[cannibalpeas]

Wow, this is something that piqued my curiosity as a wee lad. So cool to see it getting close to production.

[anon29537550]

But do they make spice when you drown them?

[ycleptShawn]

My mom has been feeding silkworms in her backyard, so this hits home. New options for post apocalyptic technical gear.

[Brainspore]

@LutherBlisset

what do these mutant caterpillars feed on?

What don’t these mutant caterpillars feed on?

[Medievalist]

What happened to those GM spider goats with the silky milk?

[algomeysa2]

Soon to be a SyFy Channel Original Movie from film studio The Asylum.

[stonehusky]

For those of you on the east coast of the US of A, these are Joro spiders; the same invasives that are cluttering up our forests. They started in NE Georgia but are moving north (they overwinter quite nicely). The webs are stoopid strong and even able to capture hummingbirds.

[RickMycroft]

A gunsilk jacket sounds very cyberpunk.

[CanadianBeaver]

I for one welcome our bulletproof mutant worm overlords

[FloridaManJefe]

“Tacti-cool, yet stylish!”