Synthetic silks will have wide-ranging applications – if only silkworms and spiders would give up their secrets to scientistsIt's tougher than Kevlar and stronger than steel, and no one really knows how to make it. Except spiders of course. And silkworms. Scientists have been trying to mimic the remarkable properties of natural silk for years, with varying success. New approaches are needed to break the deadlock, argue Fiorenzo Omenetto and David Kaplan of Tufts University in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science.Omenetto and Kaplan say reconstituted silks could have a wide range of applications, from implantable drug delivery systems to optical and electronic devices. We've all watched a spider build a web or lower itself down a delicate thread. You ...