Silk is a commonly known fabric around the world. Soft, luxurious, and… bulletproof?
Australian scientists may have failed to create dragons, but Dutch scientists and bio artist Jalila Essaïdi (Ja-leela Es-eye-dee), grew (almost) superhuman skin in a petri dish. How, you ask? Scientists began by taking the gene that creates spider-silk and splicing it into the DNA of a goat. They then take an embryo with this new DNA and plant it into a female goat, hoping that a young goat will be born with this new mutation. This spidergoat led to the genetically altered goat to create milk filled with spider-silk proteins. This milk is then spun into thread to create a bulletproof fabric (watch the process here!).
Jalila Essaïdi (Ja-leela Es-eye-dee), in collaboration with cell biologist Abdoelwaheb El Ghalbzouri (Abdul-Waheeb El Galb-zoory) then grew a unique combination of spider silk and human skin to create bulletproof skin. When shot with a .22 caliber gun at half its velocity, this bizarre new skin was not penetrated.
But why spider silk?
It’s a little known fact that these delicate threads are three times stronger than Kevlar – the material commonly used in modern day bulletproof vests. This revelation could change the military world – a lightweight, flexible, bulletproof vest would be much more comfortable, and who knows, someday we might replace the weight and bulk of Kevlar with this new material.
“Science fiction? Maybe, but we can get a feeling of what this transhumanistic idea would be like by letting a bulletproof matrix of spidersilk merge with an in vitro human skin,” says Jalila (full article here).
Spiders and superpowers? Looks like humanity is on its way to becoming its own Spiderman.
