bioprospecting
cagapakis | September 30, 2010There was some big news yesterday in transgenic silk from Notre Dame and the University of Wyoming, where scientists have genetically engineered silkworms to produce silk that is a mixture of spider silk and the regular silkworm stuff. Silkworms produce the strong and versatile silk that is used to make clothes, but spiders produce silk that can be much stronger and much more elastic. Spiders, however, don't like to be grown in huge factories and don't make easily harvested cocoons like silkworms, so gathering even small amounts is very difficult (here's a fun how-to for collecting spider…