Spider Missing After Trip To Space Station 507
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."
Re:Spiders are not cannibals (Score:5, Informative)
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 [wikipedia.org]
Re:Where oh where? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
How Spiders Eat (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Link to original, more detailed, story. (Score:5, Informative)
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."
Benji Spider (Score:1, Informative)
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.
Actually, no missing spider at all. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Not necessarily (Score:3, Informative)
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.
I just read about this... (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Where oh where? (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Where oh where? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Where oh where? (Score:5, Informative)
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...
Re:Not necessarily (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How Spiders Eat (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Where oh where? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Try living in Australia (Score:3, Informative)
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).