through the department of physics (college of science), utah state university has placed more student experiments into space than any educational institution in the world. a team of usu and university of idaho researchers were the first in the world to successfully clone an equine. the baby mule, named idaho gem, was born may 4, 2003. usu researchers made headlines in 2011 after breeding transgenic goats. utah state university professor randy lewis' "spider goats", the milk of which contains spider silk, are being studied for uses including human muscle tissue and light-weight bulletproof vests.