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Comment by the8472 | Hacker News Reader

> “This new reinforcing procedure could also be applied to other animals and plants, leading to a new class of bionic materials,”

how about silk worms? at least we know how to handle those in bulk.

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There's a lot of effort going into just that, though there are some stumbling blocks researchers are still working their way through before we start seeing production scaled up.

http://news.discovery.com/tech/spider-silk-silkworms-genetic...

But how about just natural silk with carbon nanotubes? Sure spidersilk is "the greatest" -- but maybe nano-augmented regular silk is better than, well regular silk?

[ed: insert dystopian sci-fi plot of scattered survivors of the nano apocalypse growing bullet proof vests from silk worms found in old industrial (nano)waste sites...]

What do you mean by "natural silk".

Where do you think "natural silk" comes from?

I meant silkworm-silk. I wonder if silkworms can be made to make regular silk that's augmented with nanotubes for a similar (relative) increase in strength, with similar easy process (shower silk-worms and their food with water with nanotubes etc).

"Natural silk" aka "silk" comes from silkworms.

Right. I was wondering if silk worms could be made to produce nano-silk if drenched in nanotube-water, like the spiders (or fed leaves dipped in nanotube-water etc).

[ed: I probably should've written "normal" silk, not natural silk...]

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