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Spider Missing After Trip To Space Station
Garabito writes "A spider that had been sent to the International Space Station for a school science program was lost. Two arachnids were sent in order to know if spiders can survive and make webs in space, but now only one spider can be seen in the container. NASA isn't sure where the other spider could have gone. I, for one, welcome our new arachnid overlords."
Black widow spiders typically prey on a variety of insects, but occasionally they do feed upon woodlice, diplopods, chilopods and other arachnids.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_widow_spider
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If this was the result of spider cannibalism, it'd be easier to just find the dessicated spider husk left in the container. They probably checked for that.
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To everyone (including myself) whose first thought was that the one spider ate the other, I'd suggest we consider how spiders eat.
Spiders don't swallow prey whole. If it'd been two or three octopuses, fish, snakes, frogs or any other sort of animal, this would make sense. But I'd be willing to bet one spider eating the other wouldn't have gone unnoticed for at least a couple of reasons. First, spiders don't eat quickly. One spider eating something the same size would be sucking the juices out of the other for quite a long time (hours). Second, the spiders are messy in the sense that they tend to leave dried out carcasses laying around after they're done.
So... that's probably not what happened.
My god people, is slashdot actually linking to ABC action news? I mean come on, firstly the summary (of the summary) is woefully incomplete.. Even though the original link also belongs to ABC at least it doesnt have the word "action" attached to "news". I'm just waiting for ABC's next upgrade to SEXY, ACTION NEWS... a bit elitist? Maybe.. but at least the original link clarifies the story rather than leaving out information in order to make the story more "exciting".. From TFA: "NASA isn't sure where the spider could have gone." Doesn't mean they don't have an idea..
From the original article: "Kirk Shireman, deputy shuttle program manager, says that while only one spider is visible, that doesn't mean the other is missing. 'We don't believe he has escaped the payload. I am sure we will find him spinning a web somewhere in the next few days."
These spiders are not as they appear to be. They are merely the projection into our dimension of hyperintelligent, pandimensional beings. This whole science project has been stage-managed by them from the start to get back to their home dimension.
Another case of news media sensationalizing what really happened. There are two spiders in the habitat (spider habaitat, not ISS human habitat). The goal is to see how two spiders will interact in micro-gravity.
For about the first 24 hours after launch only one spider was seen. After that BioServe Space Technologies at CU Boulder (the group responsible for the habitat) located the other spider. It had simply been outside of the view of the camera.
Well, I would certainly hope NASA isn't dumb enough to send poisonous spiders into space into small, confined quarters with a few humans. That could end poorly, to say the least.
All spiders are venomous (I doubt the humans up there plan to eat the thing, so whether they're poisonous is irrelevant). The important thing is whether they're big and strong enough to inject the venom into a human.
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From the more detailed article: "
Kirk Shireman, deputy shuttle program manager, says that while only one spider is visible, that doesn't mean the other is missing. 'We don't believe he has escaped the payload. I am sure we will find him spinning a web somewhere in the next few days.'"
This is why I don't trust any form of "Action" news.
Worry not, I'm sure NASA is already firing up their ion cannon to fight the beast. It masquerades by day as a mild-mannered Earth sensing satellite.
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"But the reality is that these creatures will rarely sting unless you disturb them or their nest(at least in europe)."
No way. I grew up in Pennsylvania with a swimming pool in my backyard. You wouldn't believe how much insects a pool in that area attracts. Many, many times if a few friends were over to swim, and the wasps felt threatened of their water source (for their nests in our attic) then they would get very aggressive. They would even just randomly sting people lounging out on the deck. Bumble bee's are one thing, but wasps just don't even want you nearby (even if you were there first). Also, you preyed everytime you mowed the lawn that you wouldn't disturb an underground nest...
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Those long-range wasp cans are frickin' awesome, as are the wasp traps. You put them out in the spring, and they never really get a foothold.
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Actually, in Australia at least there are plenty of good reasons to be extremely arachnophobic. We have numerous potentially deadly spiders, many of which can be found in and around ordinary homes, and some of which display aggressive behaviour. Amongst the catalogue are those that just really, really hurt, those that kill you quite rapidly, and those that induce nice things like necrotised (sp?) flesh.
Although the rate of deaths from bites is very low, I would suggest that is because most people in Australia are smart enough to know that some spiders are quite dangerous and to either kill them, remove them, or stay the hell away from them. Personally I remove things like huntsmen spiders (which can bite, but won't kill you), and kill things that look like redbacks and other dangerous breeds.
And I disagree about the fear not being innate - my personal experience is that there is something hard-coded into me which induces an irrational burst of fear when I see a spider. I don't get the same thing from animals I know to be at least as dangerous, such as snakes (which are also very poisonous and very dangerous in Australia before you start on that topic).
Read Pynchon.