The problem with body armor has always been how do you balance the right amount of protection while still maintaining the same agility that you have when you dont wear one. Based on occupation peoples protection levels vary, some people only require a small amount of protection from low calibre ballistics such as security guards, bodyguards and police that work in areas that have a lower gun crime rate (although this is not an exact science). Basically the military and some police job types can mean they will be up against high calibre weapons that would usually penetrate the lighter body armor models; the obvious solution for them is to increase the armor ballistic level to protect against not only high calibre weaponry but also multiple shots being fired at it repeatedly. This is fine but there is sadly one drawback, usually the higher the ballistic level the higher the weight and the more restricted there movement can be while wearing the body armor.

In places like Iraq and Afghanistan the military really need to be able to stay comfortable and have maximum protection but also still maintain maximum speed and agility especially when on exercise in dangerous provinces. They have the added danger of homemade and military made anti personal mines exploding near them and although they're vital organs are protected under heavy duty body armor, sadly many lose their limbs, this is an example of when maximum movement and speed could help avoid injury.

The search for lighter yet stronger fibre to make body armor has been ongoing for years now since Kevlar's inception in the 1970s. Thankfully with the advent of turn of the century cutting edge technology and genetic engineering scientists have found a solution in the form of spidersilk taken from the orb weaving spider. Research suggest that Kevlar is 5x stronger than steel just like spidersilk the only difference is they estimate spidersilk to be 3x more flexible than Kevlar. This means wearing body armor from spidersilk will mean an increase of agility and speed over someone wearing standard Kevlar made body armor. Now apply this to the situation explained above when dealing with explosives this is a massive leap forward in body armor technology.

Last year scientists at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies in Germany studied the science behind the silk being so strong. They found that the silk was created in the abdomen and was soft, it then hardened as it was threaded out of the spiders body. They basically realised that the same compounds that gave the silk its very elastic properties also lead to the correct stress distributions needed to make durable body armor. The issue was then how do you mass produce this spidersilk on a large scale. The problem being that most spiders will attack each other if kept together and are not very communal. The answer was silk worms and genetic engineering to create silkworms that could produce the same silk that the spiders can. With this spidersilk set to revolutionise the body armor industry, we ask what is next?