Have you ever wondered if you could swing from building to building like Spiderman? Well, perhaps someday you will be able to do this! Around October 2024, scientists at the University of the United States found a way to create a Spiderman-based web-like fluid. The building blocks of this were the cocoons of the Bombyx mori silkworm, which is then boiled down which  into a special solution to break down and extract the main component – a fibrous protein called silk fibroin. The acetone caused the silk fibroin to form a semi-solid hydrogel over hours. But if this web-like material is going to be useful, it must form much quicker.

In comes dopamine.

As well as being an important molecule in the brain, dopamine also makes adhesives. This sped up the process of solidification until it happened almost instantly. Now, for the web-shooter component used to spin the fibres in the air, the researchers used a coaxial needle with two concentric holes. They shot the silk fibroin-dopamine solution through the inner hole and the acetone through the outer one.

Next is the problem of the weight this material can carry. The researchers enhanced the silk fibroin-dopamine solution even further with chitosan, which gave the fibres up to 200 times greater tensile strength, and a borate buffer. This increased the stickiness about 18-fold.

Currently, it can hold things such as a cocoon, a steel bolt, a laboratory tube floating on water, a scalpel partially buried in sand, and a 5g wood block from about 12cm away.

At this point in time, the web shooter can’t enable people to swing from buildings, but one day, it could help rescue people more efficiently from fires, floods, earthquakes or other natural disasters. It might also become a sport or a type of transport — if we could find a way to attach chairs to it. Maybe it could act as an eco-friendly source of something, such as rope. Maybe one day, people will be dressed up as spiderman all over the streets, but this time not in secret.