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."

Comments

Re:Where oh where?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Arachnophobia is the most common phobia, certainly in the western world. It's certainly not innate. Babies show no fear of spider at all. We pick arachnophobia up from our parents and from those around us, and it's easy to see why. When people around you, and almost everyone you see in contemporary media displays arachnophobia, it's hard not to be arachnophobic. Hollywood's use of spiders, and spider like creatures, as stock horror objects is actually a self perpetuating.

I would compare this to the slightly less common, and more substantiated, fear of wasps and bees. People will become very, very nervous around wasps and bees, jumping up from their seats, running away, or trying to kill the creature. But the reality is that these creatures will rarely sting unless you disturb them or their nest(at least in europe). Nevertheless fear of wasps is much more acceptable than fear of spiders, but only slightly more justifiable, and it's just as irrational.

Some people are so arachnophobic that they will actually kill any spiders they see. It's a very ugly thing to see someone quite viciously slam down a shoe or newspaper on a spider as it tries to scurry to safety. There is no reason to it. At least people who stand on chairs aren't taking it out on the spider. Apparently a cure for a phobia is gentle exposure. A friend of mine went to a spider museum in Prague and apparently lost all apprehension around spider entirely. I'm not sure I'd recommend this for your wife though.

Re:Where oh where?

[blueZ3]

Arachnophobia may not be innate (I think you could argue either way on this--my daughter cried when she saw a spider crawling along the rail of her crib--and as far as I know, that's the first time she ever saw one), but it's a reasonable response.

Spiders are venomous. For an average person, identification of spiders at any distance isn't easy, so the "danger! move away" response is the safe one. And eliminating spiders in a child's bedroom, for instance, is pretty much a no-brainer.

Here in California, one of the common spiders is the Black Widow. When I was a child, my father wound up in the hospital after being "bitten" by a Black Widow. Which again means that the "danger! move away" response makes sense.

With bees and wasps, you've got people who know either first or second hand about the pain of a sting, so again, I don't think a moderate amount of fear is unreasonable, no matter that the danger of being stung is pretty low. For people like myself (where anaphylactic shock is a possibility) moving away from the vicinity of bees is not only reasonable, but wise.

All that to say that I don't think some degree of concern about spiders, bees, and wasps is completely unreasonable--which is what a phobia implies.

By the way, I used to scoop up spiders and carry them outside when I found them indoors. But since I've been married, I usually have to vacuum them up. Sheesh--lose track of one spider on the way to the front door and you'll never live it down :-)