Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:00:00 PDT Joyce Hung http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110121/03531412765/dailydirt-tarantulas.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110121/03531412765/dailydirt-tarantulas.shtml

A new species of tree-dwelling tarantula that's about the size of an Alien facehugger has been discovered in Sri Lanka. It has a leg span of about 8 inches across, and has unique and colorful leg and abdominal markings. It's a type of tiger spider, which are known for being colorful, fast, and venomous. [url]

Several colorful new tree-dwelling tarantulas have been discovered in Brazil. Red, pink, orange, yellow, and blue are just some of the colors that can be found on these spiders. Apparently, scientists are actually concerned that people will want these colorful tarantulas as pets. [url]

An asbestos-covered tarantula might be on the loose in Cardiff, Wales. Workers who were removing asbestos from an abandoned house found a large molted tarantula skin in the attic, which means the spider could be roaming around town somewhere covered in asbestos. While it's not a new species (experts think it's a Chilean rose tarantula), it could actually be up to twice as large as the molted skin, since tarantulas swell in size after shedding their skin... [url]

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110121/03531412765 Wed, 20 Mar 2013 17:00:00 PDT Joyce Hung http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110105/20192212542/dailydirt-interesting-spider-behavior.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110105/20192212542/dailydirt-interesting-spider-behavior.shtml

Yes, spiders eat bats too. Apparently, bat-eating spiders live on every continent (except Antarctica). Most of them catch bats in their webs, but huntsman spiders and tarantulas have been observed eating bats on forest floors. [url]

Spiders can adapt to zero-gravity. A "Johnson Jumper" spider named Nefertiti survived 100 days on the International Space Station, during which it demonstrated a new technique for catching fruit flies in zero-gravity. Instead of jumping on its prey, it would sidle up to it. [url]

Contrary to popular belief, spiders can be sociable. Of the more than 43,678 species of spiders out there, about 24 social spider species have been identified. In a most recent discovery, researchers found that females from a social species of spider called Chikunia nigra were surprisingly tolerant of other spiders from the same colony and were willing to look after another's eggs/hatchlings as if they were her own. [url]

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110105/20192212542 Tue, 30 Oct 2012 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101013/10390711410/dailydirt-spooky-spiders.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101013/10390711410/dailydirt-spooky-spiders.shtml

The Indian town of Sadiya was overrun with spiders -- venomous ones that weren't known to be native to the area. Out of dozens of reported bites, two people died -- but the deaths might have been caused by inept medical treatments. [url]

An invasive snake killed off a significant population of forest birds in Guam, causing the spider population to grow to forty times that of nearby islands. Normally, birds compete with spiders over eating insects, so when the birds died out, the spiders had an all-you-can-eat insect buffet. [url]

Flooding in Wagga Wagga (Australia) forced spiders to seek higher ground to avoid drowning. The standing water caused an increase in the insect population and also resulted in vast blankets of spider webs covering fields like snow. [url]

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101013/10390711410 Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100323/1034538680/dailydirt-spiders-man.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100323/1034538680/dailydirt-spiders-man.shtml

Japanese researchers have used spider silk as violin strings. This is what it sounds like when doves flies cry.... [url]

Surprisingly, certain spider silk is an excellent conductor of heat -- better than silicon, aluminum or iron -- and becomes more conductive as it stretches. Silk threads from "golden silk orbweavers" could teach us more about thermal conductivity and have applications in heat sinks or textile fiber technology. [url]

It took a million spiders to produce enough silk to make an 11'x4' rug. It also took 70 people four years to collect all that silk. [url]

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100323/1034538680 Tue, 7 Feb 2012 17:00:00 PST Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100129/1527227981/dailydirt-sneaky-little-spiders.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100129/1527227981/dailydirt-sneaky-little-spiders.shtml

Some crafty male spiders court attractive females by giving them gifts wrapped in silk -- but sometimes the gifts turn out to be inedible seeds or empty insect exoskeletons. Female spiders prefer edible gifts (chocolates, not flowers, guys), but in the end, they lay the same number of fertilized eggs regardless of whether or not the gift is appreciated. [url]

What can a male spider do when the females of its species are known to eat their mates? In at least two spider species, the males snap off their genitals inside their mates. Evolutionary pressures can be painful... ouch. [url]

Male wolf spiders have been observed to "eavesdrop" on their competition in order to outdo the mating dances of their rivals. Researchers came to this conclusion by letting spiders watch video screens of other male spiders dancing... and observing them pick up some cool new moves. [url]

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100129/1527227981 Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:00:00 PST Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100630/09522010019/dailydirt-itsy-bitsy-spiders.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100630/09522010019/dailydirt-itsy-bitsy-spiders.shtml

LinEpig is a Picasa photo album of lots of female spiders' private parts. It's not easy to identify female erigonines of the linyphiid family, but at least one amateur spider fan has collected quite a few pictures that might help. [url]

The average person does NOT swallow 8 spider every year. How would anyone even measure how many spiders are swallowed (unless people consciously ate them)? [url]

The golden orb-web spider can coat its web strands with an ant repellent, 2-pyrrolidinone. Other large spiders probably also do this, otherwise ants would be seen foraging on spider webs all the time... [url]

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100630/09522010019 Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091114/0221096928/dailydirt-zombies.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091114/0221096928/dailydirt-zombies.shtml the CDC!) make some of the premises for these zombie movies sound plausible, but mother nature itself has created a few zombie phenomena as well. Here are just some examples.

• Toxoplasma gondii infects rodents, cats.. and people -- possibly causing weird behaviors and strange culture quirks. The Happening has already happened, sort of. [url]
• Fungus-controlled ants are compelled by their mold-masters to die in nice neighborhoods for spores to thrive. These ants are programmed to die on north-facing plant leaves, roughly 25 centimeters off the ground, in an area with 94-95% humidity and a temperature between 20-30 Celsius. [url]
• A wasp's venom can turn a cockroach into a "dog on a leash." The wasp ends up laying eggs in the belly of its cockroach-pet -- and the wasp young eat their way out. [url]
• Another kind of wasp lays its eggs in an orb spider, and the larvae control the spider to build a special web for them. Is there a Spiderman villan based on this wasp? [url]
• To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091114/0221096928 Wed, 15 Jun 2011 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110106/15541912560/dailydirt-our-eight-legged-friends.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110106/15541912560/dailydirt-our-eight-legged-friends.shtml

The little Argyroneta aquatica spider is the first known spider to live its entire life under water. It still needs to breathe air, so it creates a little diving bell that also seems to act like a gill. [url]

It might not be so cruel to pull a couple legs off of spiders... since spiders can survive just fine on 6 legs. Five-legged spiders, though, are definitely handicapped. [url]

About 40 new species of spiders were found in the Philippines -- along with a lot of other new species of invertebrates and fish. Apparently, "the Philippines has more diversity on land and sea than any other place on earth." [citation needed?] [url]

Here's a quick fact/fiction summary about the camel spider. First fact: the camel spider isn't really a spider. Thanks for playing. [url]

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110106/15541912560 Wed, 25 May 2011 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110303/14343613355/dailydirt-friendly-neighborhood-spiders.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110303/14343613355/dailydirt-friendly-neighborhood-spiders.shtml

If you've ever wondered what kind of spider bit Spiderman so that webs could squirt out of his wrists, there may be an actual answer now. It's possible that tarantulas can spin from their limbs in order to stick to tricky surfaces. [url]

The bite from the Brazilian wandering spider can cause four hour erections -- leading to the development of another kind of drug treatment for erectile dysfunction. A peptide called PnTx2-6 was isolated from the spider venom, and it made some lab rats happier for a while. [url]

Flooding in Pakistan has caused some spiders to take to the trees -- creating a LOT of spiderweb-filled foliage. The unexpected benefit seems to be that, despite the plentiful amount of standing water, the mosquito population has been pretty effectively reduced by the ubiquitous spiderwebs. [url]

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