Spiders

Tougher than steel, lighter than cotton. For decades, spider silk has been the material science promised but never quite delivered at scale. Now, a biotech company claims it has cracked the code by turning the familiar silkworm into living factories.

Scientists believe lightweight, ultra-strong and flexible spider silk is now one step closer to commercial use thanks to a deceptively complex 'box' that can spin nature's wonder fiber in a "spontaneous, extremely rapid, and highly reproducible" way.

Spider silk is known to be one of nature's strongest and toughest materials. If everything works out, an alfalfa-produced synthetic version of the stuff will be used in the construction of the Velozzi Hypercar … only 100 of which will be made.

According to Japanese robotics firm TMSUK, there's currently a shortage of sewer-inspection workers in that country. The company has therefore set out to streamline the workload for existing workers, by making a sewage-pipe-inspecting robotic spider.

As one of the strongest materials known to science, spider silk regularly finds itself at the center of exciting engineering breakthroughs, but a new study involving a quick chemical bath could see silkworm silk outperform it.

While we've seen a number of robotic grippers inspired by various animals, US scientists have now taken a much more "direct" approach. They've devised a method of using actual dead spiders to delicately grasp small objects.

Adhesives that hold underwater are elusive, but could be useful for marine repairs or tissue healing. Researchers have now developed a new type of adhesive hydrogel that combines the underwater stickiness of mussels with the strength of spider silk.

Spider silk is one of nature’s most impressive materials, exhibiting impressive strength and toughness. Now, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis claim to have created an artificial version that can outperform some natural spider silks.

By mimicking the self-assembling microstructures that give spider silk its incredible strength, scientists have produced a plant-based film with the strength of common single-use plastics, offering a "vegan" eco-friendly alternative.

Nanofibers have found use in numerous applications, ranging from lightweight car parts to high-strength materials. Now, thanks to a new understanding of a certain group of spiders, they may soon be easier to work with.

The ability of jumping spiders to correctly judge the distance of its leaps could mean big things for imaging in small devices, with scientists at Harvard tapping into these skills to develop a new kind of ultra-compact depth-perception sensor.

Spider-Man's "spidey-sense" isn't purely fiction – spiders have tiny, sensitive hairs on their legs that help them avoid predators or hunt prey. And now, engineers at Purdue University have developed similar sensors for autonomous cars or drones.