Arachnid Ale Uses Yeast to Make Spider Silk

Many people who read Hackaday hold the title of “Webmaster” but [The Thought Emporium] is after slightly different credentials with the same title. He aims to modify a strain of yeast to produce spider silk. Charlotte’s Web didn’t go into great detail about the different types of silk that a spider can produce, but the video and screencap after the break give a rundown of how spiders make different types of silk, and that each species of spider makes a unique silk. For this experiment, the desired silk is “beta sheets” which the video explains are hard and strong.

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Watch Genetically Modified Zika-Fighting Mosquitoes Released From a Van

Like an ice-cream truck—one that distributes genetically-modified, disease-fighting insects instead of sweet treats. Continue reading Watch Genetically Modified Zika-Fighting Mosquitoes Released From a Van

Would You Wear Fashion Made From Your Own DNA?

Tina Gorjanc’s ‘Pure Human Project’ examines a future where we can grow human leather. Continue reading Would You Wear Fashion Made From Your Own DNA?

Is It Ethical to Grow Human Organs Inside Animal Chimeras?

Even if creating human-animal “chimeras” is not intrinsically wrong, is there an ethical problem in experimenting on and harvesting organs from a creature that is part-human? Continue reading Is It Ethical to Grow Human Organs Inside Animal Chimeras?