Meet a colorful but color-blind spider

Jumping spiders, the flamboyant dandies of the eight-legged set, have names inspired by peacocks, cardinals and other colorful icons.

Spider venom for therapeutics and bioinsecticides

The venom of a single spider can contain up to 3000 components. These components, mostly peptides, can be used to develop promising drug leads for the treatment of diseases. Spider venom can also be used as a biological pesticide. ...

How does a spider weave its web?

Emily Setton removes the lid from a small, plastic dish on her lab bench. Within the clear, rectangular plate are half-circle wells containing hundreds of round beads about the color and size of couscous—the large kind.

Synthetic biology yields easy-to-use underwater adhesives

Several marine organisms, such as mussels, secrete adhesive proteins that allow them to stick to different surfaces under sea water. This attractive underwater adhesion property has inspired decades of research to create ...

Spiders' web secrets unraveled

Johns Hopkins University researchers discovered precisely how spiders build webs by using night vision and artificial intelligence to track and record every movement of all eight legs as spiders worked in the dark.

Asian spider takes hold in Georgia, sends humans scurrying

A large spider native to East Asia has spun its thick, golden web on power lines, porches and vegetable patches all over north Georgia this year—a proliferation that has driven some unnerved homeowners indoors and prompted ...

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