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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LightPhoenix" data-source="post: 3970938" data-attributes="member: 115">Right... silkworms are not terribly efficient for making large amounts of silk (and likely other polymers), but they're very efficient at small quantities.  The idea was to introduce the genes into goats, and hopefully the bulk efficiency was high enough that the yield was greater than the silkworms.  That wasn't the case though.  The reason silk is more expensive than say, linen, is because the efficiency of bulk for silkworms isn't very high.I think we're thinking the same thing, just at different angles.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />   This is why "use your words" doesn't work for me.   <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /> While it's true that some mammals have thicker skins, the main reason we're less resilient than other apes, or felines, or canines, is our lack of a hair layer to cushion blows.  Even then, there's little protection against piercing blows - hence the predominance of arrows (over slings, once developed) and spears in hunting.Additionally, we receive a lot of tactile input from skin in response to pressure.  Certain areas, such as the face or hands, having thicker skin would actually be something of a detriment, due to a lack of input and feedback.  I also think it would be nigh impossible to stretch with changing size as well.Finally, and this is conjecture on my part, but the skin at any layer is not a homogenous surface vertically or horizontally, and sticking a homogenous layer anywhere in there seems like it might cause more problems than it would help.All that said, as a skin-tight outer coating, the idea has a lot of merit.  I know a lot of cooks that would love skin-tight gloves that were resistant to cutting and were a little pressure sensative.  There's a lot of potential for stuff like lightweight armor, spacesuits, and the like.I didn't realize they had devleoped them in the 50s.  I would have thought it would have worked... shows why I'm not an aerospace engineer.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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