How can a tiny spider body contain material for several decimeters of gossamer silk, and what governs the conversion to thread? Researchers in Sweden can now explain this process. How can a tiny ...

Spiders may be scary for some people, but the silk that they produce to weave their webs is very appealing to many scientists. Amazingly tough, yet lightweight, spider silk has been used in everything ...

An international team of scientists has devised artificial silk that becomes a slim yet tough fiber, with help from a machine designed to mimic the spinning spiders do naturally. The silk isn’t quite ...

It has five times the tensile strength of steel and is stronger than even the best currently available synthetic fibers: Spider thread. Scientists have now succeeded in unveiling a further secret of ...

Spider silk is renowned for its lightweight yet stronger-than-steel fibers, and now scientists are finding a new use for the fine, strong thread: as an artificial muscle. Scientists at the University ...

EMERYVILLE — Clothing and spiders go all the way back to Greek mythology, in which the arrogant weaver Arachne is turned into a spider by the goddess Athena after challenging her to a weaving ...