Understanding how the stretching process strengthens spider silk is a key part of helping design stronger, biodegradable, silk-inspired materials for various applications. When spiders spin their webs ...

When they weave their webs, spiders pull their silk threads. New simulations show stretching during spinning causes the protein chains within the fibers to align and the number of hydrogen bonds ...

Scanning electron microscopy images of fibers from engineered spider silk. To validate their computational findings, the Northwestern team used spectroscopy techniques to examine how the protein ...