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Former vice president Gore spoke at Google a couple of weeks ago (promoting his new book). One of the research projects he mentioned was "spider-goats", goats t

Former vice president Gore spoke at Google a couple of weeks ago (promoting his new book). One of the research projects he mentioned was "spider-goats", goats that are genetically engineered to secrete spider silk along with their milk. Some details in a news article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jan/14/synthetic-biology-spider-goat-genetics http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jan/14/synthetic-biol... Given the value of the silk (and presumably the difficulty in mass-farming spiders), this seems like an attractive idea -- as long as the scientists do the math right and don't end up with spiders the size of goats or something.

trafficlight 14y ago
Look on the bright side, we'll have a new sport: Spider Goat Jousting.
smegel 14y ago
Sounds like an unacceptable risk to me
- eksith 14y ago
  Exact line used in criticism of vaccines, air-travel and in-vitro fertilization. All new technology carries unacceptable risk... until they don't. But that's why science needs a constant feedback loop to improve understanding and safety. We can't make safe what we don't understand.
  - marvin 14y ago
    He was making a joke about the risk of goat-sized spiders.
    - Djehngo 14y ago
      I don't think drawing attention to the fact the comment wasn't short sighted, merely inane will gather much more sympathy for the poster.
      - adlpz 14y ago
        It might be interesting to introduce you people to the concept of humor.
        nrser 14y ago
        the joke here is that there are no jokes. that's what makes it funny.
nasir 14y ago
Having the silk liquid along with the milk is not enough to produce the solid silk. Spiders physical action in turning that liquid to solid is indeed another important part of that. Probably they should produce 8 legged spider goats!