Is spider web really stronger than steel?

Summary by Krater

An investigation into the mechanical properties of spider silk, comparing its strength, stretch, and toughness to steel and Kevlar, and exploring the science and history behind efforts to produce spider silk commercially.

From the video

Answers: How strong is spider silk compared to steel and Kevlar?

• spider silk strength and toughness
• dragline silk properties
• spider silk vs steel and Kevlar
• bioengineered spider silk protein
• silkworm genetic modification
• spider farming challenges
• silk spinning mechanism in spiders
• history of silk trade and production

What it concludes

• Spider dragline silk is reported to be stronger than steel and ten times tougher than Kevlar.
• Spider silk is stronger pound-for-pound than ultra high strength steel because of its specific strength.
• Spider silk outperforms Kevlar in toughness due to its combination of high tensile strength and extreme elasticity.
• Silkworms cannot be genetically modified using piggyBac transposons to produce high yields of pure spider silk because they insert randomly and limit expression to around 6 percent.
• CRISPR Cas9 allows targeted insertion of spider silk genes into silkworm DNA to improve silk protein expression.