With a little help from genetically modified goats, human skin can stop a bullet. This new skin is mixed with ‘milk’ from goats modified to produce the same protein found in spider silk. Woven spider silk is four times stronger than Kevlar, the material used in bulletproof vests. The ‘silk’ is layered with bio-engineered human skin grown in laboratory, and can withstand a direct impact from a bullet – although not one fired at full speed, yet. The bio-engineered skin cushions a bullet fired at half speed. But its resistance has its limits: when shot at a full speed of 329 m/s, the bullet pierces the material and travels through it. Dutch researchers initial goal was to replace the keratin in our skin with the spider’s silk. The silk is produced in Utah, spun into thread in Korea, and then woven into layers of fabric in Germany. The last stage involves growing a layer of real skin around a sample of the bulletproof skin, which takes about five weeks. http://www.impactlab.net/2012/01/31/bio-engineered-bulletproof-human-skin-reinforced-with-spider-silk/www.impactlab.net
