Spider silk
Similar to our obsession with diamonds as the “hardest material on earth,” our fascination with the naturally occurring material of silk never seems to abate. Stronger than steel, weight-for-weight, the super-fine material has the added bonus of being super-flexible. Scientists have long tried to synthetically engineer the material (to give the humble silkworm a bit of a break), with little progress. But a team from from the MIT Media Lab has found a way to control silkworms to do their bidding to create a silk pavilion—basically, printing with worms.