this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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Spider silk breakthroughs have been a tech news staple since the nineties, as far as I can remember.
Never have seen a product that makes use of the special properties.
Production has been a real bottleneck. Also, I'm skeptical they got the actual strength right in this headline. It's strong, but it's still a biological material.
Edit: Yeah, it's half as strong per weight as a high-strength synthetic polymer, and weaker than normal steel on a volumetric basis. It stretches really far before it snaps though, which has implications for things like energy absorption.