From GMOs to CRISPR: Making sense of how genetic engineering tweaks nature

Scientists Create World’s First Genetically Modified Spiders That Spin Fluorescent Red Silk In a groundbreaking first, scientists at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, have successfully engineered spiders to produce fluorescent red silk using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing. Published in May 2025, the study marks a major milestone in the genetic modification of arachnids—a long-standing challenge due to their delicate biology and breeding complexity. The researchers worked with the Parasteatoda tepid