Spider webs, it turns out, are hardened goo ... in synthetic biology are trying to reproduce natural molecules in labs.

The material solidifies into a string that can adhere to and lift objects, much like the web-slinging abilities of Spider-Man. The sticky fibers are produced at the Tufts University Silklab ...

The result is an astonishingly "Spider Man"-like silk that can be shot not unlike the superhero's wrist-mounted web shooters, as detailed in a paper published in the journal Advanced Functional ...