A Solution to the Spider Silk Mystery

A group of researchers out of UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco has found a solution to a problem that has stymied scientists for decades, and now they're bringing it to the masses. Their company, Bolt Threads, is based on a technology that uses yeast and fermentation to generate spider-silk proteins that can then be spun into thread and woven into garments. Apparel made of spider silk produced with Bolt's technology (in fact there's no other proven way to produce it on anything even approaching a large scale) should be available to consumers sometime next year. For more on spider silk, Bolt, and its technology, ready my story in Berkeley Engineer here.