Spider webs and synthetic polymers

According to an article on biologynews.net, scientists from the Technische Universitaet Muenchen and the University of Bayreuth have made a step forward in producing robust synthetic polymers with properties similar to spiderwebs.

The following is an excerpt from the article:

Five times the tensile strength of steel and triple that of the currently best synthetic fibers: Spider silk is a fascinating material. But no one has thus far succeeded in producing the super fibers synthetically. How do spiders form long, highly stable and elastic fibers from the spider silk proteins stored in the silk gland within split seconds? Scientists from the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) and the University of Bayreuth have now succeeded in unraveling the secret. They present their results in the current issue of the prestigious scientific journal Nature.