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Spiders sprayed with water containing carbon nanotubes and graphene flakes have produced the toughest fibers ever measured, say materials scientists. Spider silk is one of the more extraordinary materials known to science. The protein fiber, spun by spiders to make webs, is stronger than almost anything that humans can make. The dragline silk spiders use to make a web’s outer rim and spokes is amazing stuff. It matches high-grade alloy steel for tensile strength but is about a sixth as dense. It is also highly ductile, sometimes capable of stretching to five times its length. This combination of strength and...

Biomaterial experts at Germany’s Bayreuth and Würzburg universities claimed a breakthrough in cultivating living cells while holding them in place with liquified spider silk. The research method mixed spider silk with connective fibroblast cells from mice to generate a so-called “bio ink” or gel. Fibroblasts typically begin wound repairs. When extruded from a 3-D printer, the silk molecules quickly wrapped those cells, giving them a porous matrix in which to flourish, the team said. …

This week in New York, the American Museum of Natural History unveiled something never before seen: an 11-by-4-foot tapestry made completely of spider silk. Weavers in Madagascar took four years to make it, and the museum says there's no other like it in the world...

Amazing Fossils: Do They Help Darwin? March 19, 2009 — Some remarkable fossils have been found recently. According to the reports, scientists are not sure what to make of them, even though evolutionary language is liberally applied to the interpretation...