In a number of cases, our finest manufacturing techniques haven't touched the materials that a few billion years of evolution have produced. Carefully tuned biochemistry can take a collection of otherwise abundant and mundane substances and fashion them into materials with some amazing properties, like the surface of gecko feet or the shells of mollusks. But that doesn't mean that nature's achievements can't be tweaked. Scientists have now found that they can make spider silk even tougher. (source: arstechnica.com)
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