Spider goats makes silk that can protect us from bullets.

[Cassel]

I am a scared that they can mutate goats so much just by giving them milk...

[kerbiloid]

Now they should find a way to weave the orbital modules right in the space.
Maybe some kind of a silkworm with spider genes.

[sh1pman]

Awesome. This is actually right up my alley. I also purify recombinant proteins for research, but we use transformed bacteria instead of goats. Synthesizing proteins in transgenic animal milk gives much higher yields, but bacteria are way, WAY easier to create and work with.

P.S. They’re not spider goats, they’re goats with one extra gene that encodes silk protein.

Edited March 26, 2019 by sh1pman

[55delta]

Well, never thought I'd hear about this again...

I heard about that in the late 90s, from an episode of Beyond 2000, back when TLC wasn't an ironic name. At the time, it was a study of spider silk and if goats could be modified to produce it, as trying use spiders wouldn't produce nearly enough silk to be practical overall.

Interesting to see an end result now.

[KSK]

39 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

P.S. They’re not spider goats, they’re goats with one extra gene that encodes silk protein.

That’s what I got from the video too. Transgenic goats engineered to express silk protein in their milk. Not goats that were mutated from drinking milk.

It’s the spinning process that interests me. I think I remember reading that  the silk protein  itself is only half the story - it’s what happens to the silk thread as it’s extruded by the spider that gives it a lot of it’s strength. I could be wrong though or only half remembering something.

Didn’t think much of the bulletproof skin idea though after seeing what happened to that test block. 

[lllmaxlvllll]

"Spider goats" , did anyone else get a terrifying image of a spider-goat hybrid when they read that?

[StrandedonEarth]

16 minutes ago, KSK said:

Didn’t think much of the bulletproof skin idea though after seeing what happened to that test block. 

Yeah, whether or not a bullet pierces the silk-reinforced skin, it's gonna leave one heckuva mark, if not fractured skulls, etc

[sh1pman]

Just now, StrandedonEarth said:

Yeah, whether or not a bullet pierces the silk-reinforced skin, it's gonna leave one heckuva mark, if not fractured skulls, etc

Well, that bullet’s energy needs to go somewhere. It’s better than nothing. The next logical step would be to expand the herd, purify more protein and make an actual vest out of it.

[kerbiloid]

And the next step is a spiderman.
A genetically modified soldier with these proteins right in the bullet-proof skin instead of vests.
Landing from a helicopter on his own silk rope, stretching from a... a particular place of his body.

[p1t1o]

What sacrifice do the spider-goats demand in return for their protective aegis?

[kerbiloid]

Flies.