"Spider silk is already one of the toughest materials we know," Schniepp said in an interview Monday. "It's several times tougher than Kevlar, and Kevlar is one of the best materials we currently use. ... And these micro-loops, they seem to be just yet another trick that nature invented to go even further. We found that, even with relatively modest amount of loops, you can actually improve the toughness of the material by tens of percent."