Untangling Spider Biology

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/spider-genes-put-new-spin-arachnids-potent-venoms-stunning-silks-and-surprising-history

by sergeant3 • 9 years ago

43 14 9 years ago

sciencemag.org

thearn4• 9 years ago

As an arachnophobia Something about looking at spiders really disturbs me at some fundamental level. but I'm extremely fascinated by their biology still. Is anyone else similar?

rmaus• 9 years ago

You should read Children of Time.

interfixus• 9 years ago

Yes, someone is similar. Utterly fascinating. Spooks the shit out of me. My take is, this is too widely shared a phobia not to have some solid genetic underpinning.

nolroz• 9 years ago

You might be on to something! http://www.cbs.mpg.de/Fear-of-spiders-and-snakes-is-deeply-e...

apoverton• 9 years ago

The exact same. I read the whole article but averted my eyes and quickly scrolled past all the images

agumonkey• 9 years ago

I used to be incapable of approaching even the thinnest spiders.

For a reason, now I don't scream in terror if one reaches my bed. Last summer I even drove one outside in a tiny plastic wrap, no harm was done.

I'm still surprised at the loss of fear and even the slight curiosity about their biology.

zipwitch• 9 years ago

It's a weird binary thing for me. And not fully under my control. It's like one of those perceptual illusions - sometimes I can stare at them with pleasant fascination, other times it's more a reflex "kill it with fire!"

And it's not just based on shape, color or what it's doing, either.

Pica_soO• 9 years ago

I think what terrifys us are monkey reflexes from dangerous animals. Spiders can be poisonous. I guess not being afraid of spiders is the actual defect, heavily trained in at youth.

To be honest, i find cellaphods really freaky. A octopus for example- is the perfect creature for space exploration. If it weren't for us, they would inherit the earth.

monocasa2• 9 years ago

For any other HNers that are fascinated by this stuff, I really enjoyed Barth's Neurobiology of Arachnids.

vixen99• 9 years ago

$100 (bargain price from Amazon) for the paperback is going it a bit.

monocasa2• 9 years ago

Huh, yeah. Totally agreed. I picked it up for about $35 for the hardback.

I've got a category of semi-rare books that I'd put this in if I didn't already have it. The price bots on Amazon, etc. don't really know how to handle them, so the prices fluctuate quite a bit. I've literally seen a book drop from $330 to under $10 in a day.

tboyd47• 9 years ago

It's so interesting how genetics and data science are changing taxonomy. Instead of biologists classifying species into families and the like based on observable attributes, now we are seeing computers do the classification with experts forming theories about why the results turned out a certain way.

Untangling Spider Biology

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