
Ali Burnheim
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.