Cops will wear bulletproof skin
Soldiers, police officers and heads of state will soon be able to make themselves bulletproof, without the need for bulky body armor.
By fusing genes from goats and spiders, researchers have made sheets of human skin bulletproof. Soon, they'll be able to splice silk-making genes into living humans.
Researchers with the Forensic Genomics Consortium in the Netherlands have genetically altered goats to create milk containing the same protein as spider milk. It's possible to extract the protein, weave it into a material 10 times stronger than steel and then blend it with human skin.
"This project is making science fiction reality," says researcher Jalila Essaidi.
Early experiments have used a sample of bulletproof silk with human skin grown over it, like a living implant. Eventually, Essaidi and her colleagues plan to replace the keratin inside human skin with the super-tough silk protein.
"This is possible by adding the silk-producing genes of a spider to the genome of a human, creating a bulletproof human," explains Essaidi.
Sauce: Sun magazine (October 3, 2011 issue)
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