20 Million Year Old Spider Found

evil agent writes "BBC News is reporting that Paleontologist Dr. David Penny has found a spider, and two droplets of blood, perfectly perserved in amber. He was able to extract the blood and determine its age: 20 million years old. Since it is thought to be the first time that spider blood has been found perserved in amber, it is hoped that DNA could be extracted."

is it just me

[Anonymous Coward]

Or does this sound like the intro narrative to a horror sci-fi flick...

blah!

[Anonymous Coward]

God continues to fuck with us! First all those dinosaur bones and now this! Everyone knows the earth is only 3,000 years old, they added up all the people's ages in the bible and proved it!

Looks like /. has been tricked by the atheist science lobby, again :)

Clone it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh boy I hope they clone it. 'Cause that's all we need is more spiders... :/

Welcome...

[jacen_sunstrider]

to Arachnid Park!

In other news...

[rhetoric]

Michael Crichton creams his pants in cybercafe after reading this report.

I hope to one day be fossilized

[Brandon K]

So one day, thousands (millions?) of years from now some scientists will be looking at my pale, naked body inside a shell of delicious hardened maple syrup, in which I died doing what I loved.

Then they'd bring me to some scientific symposium, and present me up on stage.

"Here you can see an ancient human, most likely in the 'geek' class. You can tell by his white skin, lack of muscles, and raw skin on his penis from over-masturbation"

*Audience oooh's and aaah's*

Re:In other news...

[rhetoric]

Michael Crichton creams his pants in cybercafe after reading this report.

Why is Michael Crichton hanging out at a cybercafe?

to pick up fat chicks duh!

Re:I hope to one day be fossilized

[Anonymous Coward]

So one day, thousands (millions?) of years from now some scientists will be looking at my pale, naked body inside a shell of delicious hardened maple syrup, in which I died doing what I loved.

Having sex with maple trees?

Do the math...

[jav1231]

Since science articles are only 50% correct, it's 10 million years old.
BTW,it looks remarkably like spiders that are merely 20 days old.
Queue NOVA voice over: "20 million years ago, the Earth was a much different place...with much difference life forms!"
Kid: "Sir! What about this spider!?"
NOVA voice: "Okay! Okay! The spiders were all the same! But there were no humans to screw things up! GOT IT!"
Kid: "Sorry...."

On the bright side...

[pmike_bauer]

If we bring back these creatures (a la Spielberg) and they get out of hand, we can just step on 'em.

How to stop a spider

[thre5her]

edit your robots.txt

Re:blah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, must be only the pre-beta version of that intelligent design... You know how release dates tend to slip. A few years here and there to improve and stabilize. In the end, you end up missing the target by a few billion years.

Or maybe it's just the demo that God presents at fairs to attract VC. I wonder if he sells licenses or subscriptions...

Re:I'm sorry, but the bible says...

[plasmacutter]

that's right.. the odds of molecules turning into a fully formed human are the same as that of an explosiion in a junkyard yielding a fully assembled 747. HEHEHEHE

Nothing new?

[Anonymous Coward]

Palaeontologist Dr David Penney, of the University of Manchester, found the 4cm long by 2cm wide fossil during a visit to a museum in the Dominican Republic.

"Oh, look! It's an amazing discovery! I found these T. Rex bones! And look, it's an ancient spider preserved in amber! Wow - there's a wooly mammoth entrapped in tar! This is the richest archeological find ever! Oh, wait... I'm in a museum."

Re:blah!

[ZakuSage]

Carbon dating just checks how much of a sample of Carbon-14 has decayed. It's not as if they take some carbon from the organism and do some weird shit to it, like putting it next to a TV and then throwing it in boiling water to see what happens.

Re:is it just me

[cmacb]

Or does this sound like the intro narrative to a horror sci-fi flick...

Yes but, fortunately for most of us, these things always go after Tokyo first. Fortunately they are always able to take care of the situation over there, although we may have to send some B52s to get swatted down while they work on that new ray-gun thing.

I'm going to put hot amber down my pants

[saskboy]

Maybe that old Slashdot troll was on to something when he started putting hot grits down his pants. Maybe he just wasn't advanced enough to realize that if he'd done it with tree sap, then he'd be naked and petrified with blood and DNA intact for at least 20 Million years, just like this spider!

I've been considering different ways I could preserve my body, and I think encasing myself in amber has shot to the top of the list, past deep freezing, and freeze drying.

Re:blah!

[Pharmboy]

Or maybe it's just the demo that God presents at fairs to attract VC. I wonder if he sells licenses or subscriptions...

I think subscriptions. 20+ years ago when I actually went to church, I would always see them pass around a metal plate, and everyone was expected to put money in it.

Re:blah!

[Stiletto]

Ahh, but you were fooled again!! The DAY-VIL encased that spider in amber just to TEST YOUR FAITH! Just like all the dinosaur bones and all those gamma rays that supposedly come from that fictonal outer space! Yup all the DAY-VIL'S work!!! PRAAAYZZZ JEEEEBUS!!! PRAAAYZZZ JEEEEBUS!!! [gurrgle] Blaaarrrgghhhannnnn! [froth] [epileptic fit]

Re:Welcome...

[Pneuma ROCKS]

Featuring... Arancnidus Google!

Re:The Lord doesn't lie

[Legion303]

Linking to answersingenesis on Slashdot means you suck at life.

$5 says...

[ChePibe]

It was discovered by a scientist's wife, who demanded he come from the other side of the forest to squish it with his shoe...

(No, I'm not a sexit pig... just a married man with an aracnophobic wife...)

Oblig. Aqua Teen Hunger Force, perhaps

[Dachannien]

Ignignokt: Did anyone see an eight-foot spider wearing a diaper in the parking lot anywhere?
Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future: I did see that spider, but when I was in that parking lot, it was about 375 thousand years ago....

Re:Worried soul here!

[MassacrE]

Based on the chances of transmitting aids via different mechanisms of intercourse, it is now believed that God's will is That Lesbians Shall Inherit the Earth.

Re:Worried soul here!

[ltbarcly]

Damn your relentless logic! Personally, I believe that cancer is caused by 'intelligent infection'. Cancer is far to complicated to be anything but the work of a 'great doctor in the sky'.

FSM

[sconeu]

Obviously, He reached out and touched the moderators with His noodly appendage.

When interviewed...

[nastro]

The spider commented that it was cold, and that no one turns up the goddamned heat anymore. It went on to note that younger spiders ran all over his web yesterday, and left things quite untidy. "No sir, things ain't what they used to be 'tall."

offtopic sig post

[Jeremi]

Advice for my fellow geeks: before seeking out that threesome you dream of, you might see what a TWOsome is like first.

Bah. I'm going to skip that amateur penny-ante stuff and go straight for the two-hundred-and-fifty-some [imdb.com]. Sex is much more exciting when you need an HR department just to schedule it.

Well, sure they can clone it...

[mlmurray]

...But the real question is can they use it's DNA to create a spider with four asses?

Re:is it just me

[Walt Dismal]

Do you realize that if that 20 million year old spider had deposited even ONE PENNY in a savings account long ago, he'd be richer than Bill Gates by now.

Yes, and allow me to add

[JudgeFurious]

A whole hearted "Fuck That Noise!" to your insightful post.

  I can't be the only person getting bad vibes from the idea of scientists recovering some 20 million year old spider DNA from this thing. We all know that once scientists get hold of 20 million year old spider DNA they can't just study it and compare it to modern spider DNA. Oh hell no, they're going to have to make some brand new "vintage" 20 million year old spiders out of it. Then those spiders will escape and breed with our spiders and shortly after that we're going to learn about the little tiny kind of spider who was really responsible for the Dinosaurs going away.

  I'm going to be so pissed off when I'm proven right on this.

How it died?

[ReadParse]

Dr Penney, of the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, said he had used the blood droplets to trace how, when and where the spider died.

Was there a question about how the spider died? I could have saved you some time and money. I could have made a good guess on the "where" also if you told me where you found him.

RP

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Arachnophilia

[nounderscores]

The point is that we'd rather have a poison dart dolphin than Bush.

Except when it comes to election time.

Re:blah!

[amliebsch]

Whatever, just make sure you get that sample to the test chamber on time. The Administrator was most insistent that we proceed on schedule. The chance of a resonance cascade scenario is surely remote...

Re:blah!

[coopaq]

What about South American religious?

Well we all know where Alabama, Georgia and Texas stand on this issue.

What's your point?

Re:is it just me

[xcham]

"Jurassic Park. But with spiders!"

And it's still a better title than this [imdb.com].

Re:is it just me

[Anonymous Coward]

And well on the way to affording his dinner at Milliways.

Re:blah!

[golgotha007]

yes, but but in the Christian faith, you're hoping not to be touched by His Noodly Appendage.

Re:blah!

[lukewarmfusion]

"I don't know what technique was used to date the spider"

Well, my guess is that he got to know the spider a bit before he finally asked it out. Then it could be a nice dinner, some wine, and a walk on the beach. If it was a more "casual" date, it might have involved a movie or Putt-Putt.

We may never know.

Re:is it just me

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually ... it IS Bill Gates!