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To some people, they are the stuff of nightmares, not to scientists in the U.K.
對某些人而言，牠們根本是惡夢裡的東西，不過，英國的科學家可不這麼認為。

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Spiders could be at the forefront of a medical revolution.
蜘蛛可能處於一項醫學革命的前線。

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They've created an implant for mending injured knee joints using silk, and hope they can go on to treat a range of other ailments, too.
他們利用絲製造了一種能夠修補受損膝關節的植入物，並且希望能夠進而治療其他各種疾病。

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For tonight's Make, Create, Innovate, Nick Glass has been to Oxford in England to see for himself.
在今晚的《製造、創作與創新》節目裡，尼克．葛拉斯到英國牛津去親眼目睹。

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A lot of us don't like them very much. Arachnophobia it's called -- fear of spiders.
我們許多人都不太喜歡這種生物，這叫作蜘蛛恐懼症，也就是害怕蜘蛛。

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Yet spider's silk is both beautiful and extraordinarily strong.
儘管如此，蜘蛛絲卻是美麗又異常強韌。

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Only now are scientists learning how to use it to mimic nature for our medical benefit.
直到現在，科學家才開始學習如何使用蜘蛛絲來模仿自然，以便為我們帶來醫療上的效益。

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So we've invented an implant called FibroFix, which goes in people's knees.
我們發明了一種植入物，叫做 FibroFix，可以植入人的膝蓋。

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It's made out of silk and it gives them the function of their knee back, but it also encourages the regeneration of cartilage tissue.
這種植入物由絲製成，可以恢復人的膝蓋功能，但也能促進軟骨組織再生。

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After joining a group studying spider silk at Oxford University in the U.K.,
在英國的牛津大學參加了一個研究蜘蛛絲的團體之後，

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Dr. Nick Skaer soon realized their potential.
尼克．史凱爾博士很快就體認到了蜘蛛絲的潛力。

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Spider silk is 25 times as tough as high-tensile steel, and it manufactures that at room temperature, room pressure, out of protein.
蜘蛛絲的強韌度是高強度鋼的二十五倍，而且是在室溫、室壓下由蛋白質製成的，

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And that makes it one of nature's finest bioengineers.
因此蜘蛛是自然界最優秀的生物工程師。

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Despite these extraordinary properties, spiders only produce tiny amounts of silk.
雖然具備這些非凡的特質，蜘蛛卻只生產極少量的絲。

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The challenge was to find a way to produce high-quality volumes of the stuff.
挑戰在於找出高質量生產這種東西的方法。

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So he turned to a different insect.
於是，他轉向另一種昆蟲。

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The silk factories are silkworm, and they've been farmed for more than 5,000 years.
蠶是產絲的工廠，而且蠶蟲養殖也已經有超過五千年的歷史。

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Each one of these can produce a couple of grams of silk, a thousand times more than a spider can.
每隻蠶都能夠產出幾公克的絲，比蜘蛛多出一千倍。

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But as silkworm is only a fifth as strong as spider silk, Skaer had to find a way to strengthen the fiber.
可是蠶絲的強度只有蜘蛛絲的五分之一，因此史凱爾必須設法提高蠶絲的強度。

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The eureka moment was understanding that we could take silkworm silk and break it down into the individual silk molecules,
靈光乍現的一刻，就是領悟到我們能夠把蠶絲分解成個別的絲分子，

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build it back into structures that capture the properties of spider silk.
再重建成擁有蜘蛛絲特質的結構。

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So there it was, the silkworm productivity combined with spider silk strength. FibroFix was born.
就這樣，把蠶的生產力和蜘蛛絲的強度結合在一起，於是 FibroFix 就此誕生了。

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So, what we turn our liquid into is one of these.
用我們的液體轉變製成的就是這種東西之一。

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This is an implant which is designed to go into the knee to repair the cartilage when it's damaged.
這是一種植入物，設計用來植入膝蓋，修補損傷的軟骨。

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A key aspect of any implant is durability.
所有植入物的關鍵面向在是在於耐久度。

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I'm gonna hang this five-kilo weight off the bottom of it.
我要把這個五公斤重的砝碼掛在它下面。

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We could probably put another five kilos on the bottom of this and it wouldn't deflect but the pins would break.
我們也許可以在底下再加掛五公斤，這東西還是一樣不會偏斜，但針恐怕會斷。

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It's probably at least ten times stronger than the options that are out there at the moment, certainly.
這東西的強度大概比目前現有的選項高了至少十倍，肯定沒錯。

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According to a recent study from Sweden, knee replacement surgery costs the U.S. health market an estimated $13 billion a year.
瑞典近來的一項研究指出，美國醫療市場一年的膝關節置換手術花費估計有一百三十億美元。

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The same study predicts a 600-percent increase in the need for this kind of surgery by 2030.
這項研究也預測，這種手術的需求到了二○三○年將增加至百分之六百。

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With Skaer's product entering clinical trials now, this could help those knees self-heal and remove the need for a replacement.
現在，史凱爾的產品已經進入臨床試驗階段，可望有助於那些膝蓋自癒，而不需要進行置換手術。

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Skaer is hopeful his technology could be used to fix other parts of the body --
史凱爾希望他的科技也能用來修補身體的其他部分——

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shoulder and hip joints, the spine and even the heart, all using animal silk technology.
肩關節與髖關節、脊椎，甚至心臟，全都使用動物絲科技。

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Insects were my passion. I used to turn over rocks and look under rocks and find bugs.
我熱愛昆蟲。我以前常翻石頭在石頭底下找昆蟲。

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Of all of the insect world, spiders were about my least favorite.
在昆蟲世界當中，蜘蛛大概可算是我最不喜歡的一種。

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Some of us will always be terrified by spiders, but Dr. Nick Skaer has forged a career by unlocking the secrets of their spinning.
我們有些人總是害怕蜘蛛，但尼克．史凱爾博士卻藉著解開牠們吐絲的奧秘而打造了一門事業。

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How do you look at spiders now?
你現在怎麼看待蜘蛛？

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I don't so much see the eight legs crawling around and the sharp pair of fangs.
我現在不那麼注意那到處爬行的八條腿以及那對銳利的尖牙。

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I see something that can spin me a remarkable material, and that's very exciting as a scientist.
我看到的是能夠為我吐出一種絕佳材質的東西，這點對於一個科學家而言，是非常令人興奮的事情。