University of California

Prototype "Spiderman gloves" that will enable window cleaners to scale walls, robots to scurry across ceilings and rock climbers to hang about could be ready within three years. There has been popular interest in how to mimic his extraordinary wall climbing ability since 1962, when the web-slinging hero with superhuman strength was born in the pages of Marvel Comics.

It has been 50 years since scientists first created DNA in a test tube, stitching ordinary chemical ingredients together to make life's most extraordinary molecule. Until recently, however, even the most sophisticated laboratories could make only small snippets of DNA — an extra gene or two to be inserted into corn plants, for example, to help the plants ward off insects or tolerate drought.