The other day I dove headfirst into a spiderweb while half-asleep inside my camper van. Screams aside, the logical part of me marveled at how fast a single creepy-crawly had woven such an ...

Eleanor is a content creator and social media assistant with an undergraduate degree in zoology and a master’s degree in wildlife documentary production. The natural world is full of useful materials ...

Spider silk—six times tougher than Kevlar and stronger than steel—has now been produced by an unexpected source. Spider silk is a biological protein fiber spun by spiders. Many of these fibers have ...

Silk is smooth, strong, and biocompatible, making it a prized material for many applications. Scientists have tried all kinds of tricks to improve silk or imbue it with new properties: They have fed ...

Surviving in the deadly world of John Wick (streaming now on Peacock) takes street smarts, a kill or be killed attitude, and a surplus of moxie. It also requires protection. Nothing short of plot ...

There are few things as haunting as walking into a spider web. But the special silk behind these universally reviled arachnid nets shows huge promise for saving human lives, from battling cancer to ...

Stephen has degrees in science (Physics major) and arts (English Literature and the History and Philosophy of Science), as well as a Graduate Diploma in Science Communication. Scientists have achieved ...

Chinese scientists have developed a method to manually spin silk from silkworms that can make it 70 percent tougher compared to the silk spun by spiders, according to South China Morning Post. This ...

Spiders hold the market for the strongest silks but are too aggressive and territorial to be farmed. The next best alternative involves incorporating spider DNA into silkworms, an expensive and ...

Anthony Cuthbertson is a staff writer at Newsweek, based in London. Anthony's awards include Digital Writer of the Year (Online Media Awards) and Journalist of the Year (Association of Online ...

Researchers have produced cellulose nanofiber (CNF) synthesized silk naturally through a simple tweak to silkworms' diet. Mixing CNF with commercially available food and feeding the silkworms resulted ...

Researchers have hacked the silkworm genome to spin fibers containing spider-silk proteins, a breakthrough that could lead to a long-sought biomaterial for a range of applications such as sutures, ...