2. Spider Goat
Molecular biologist and University of Wyoming professor Randy Lewis is harvesting a protein that he believes could have applications as far-reaching as bulletproof vests, artificial tendons and even clothing. That substance: spider silk. Stronger than steel and very flexible, spider silk's main drawback is that spiders cannot be farmed the way silkworms can. So Lewis, in collaboration with Nexia Biotechnologies, has developed an alternate harvesting method that involves extracting the silk protein from the milk of transgenic goats that have the spider silk gene inserted into their DNA. Despite this odd byproduct, Lewis says the goats behave and look like any other farm goats. They share space with regular goats, and no one who has seen them can tell them apart.
