Exploring an easy way to spin nanofibers, inspired by silkworms

Did you know that silk fabric is made from … well, worm spit? The way that silkworms wind their cocoons from fibers in their slimy saliva is now helping scientists more easily make new biomedical materials. Researchers ...

Re-spun silkworm silk is 70% stronger than spider silk

Spiders hold the market for the strongest silks but are too aggressive and territorial to be farmed. The next best alternative involves incorporating spider DNA into silkworms, an expensive and difficult-to-scale process. ...

Silkworm cat grub smells like success

Licking its lips imperiously, a ginger cat mops up every last morsel of food from its curly whiskers, clearly undaunted by its supper's rather unusual base ingredient—silkworm pupae.

Researchers use silkworm silk to model muscle tissue

Researchers at Utah State University are using silkworm silk to grow skeletal muscle cells, improving on traditional methods of cell culture and hopefully leading to better treatments for muscle atrophy.

Changing the silkworm's diet to spin stronger silk

Tohoku University researchers have produced cellulose nanofiber (CNF) synthesized silk naturally through a simple tweak to silkworms' diet. Mixing CNF with commercially available food and feeding the silkworms resulted in ...

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