November 7, 2010
Silkworms have been engineered to produce a more durable silk by augmenting them with properties from spiders. The applications of the transgenic silk include textiles, sutures and wound healing, and even new bulletproof materials.
See also a recent paper on the miraculous spidersilk produced by “Darwin’s bark spider”, Agnarsson et al. 2010. Bioprospecting finds the toughest biological material: extraordinary silk from a giant riverine orb spider. PLoS One 5 e11234 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011234