Invasive brown widow spiders across three continents were highly infected with a single strain of Rhabdochlamydia, a bacterium that is related to major pathogens of humans and animals, including chlamydia. A bite from these ...
Ecology
Jul 2, 2024
1
343
A tiny virus that may sting like a black widow spider. That is one of the surprise discoveries made by a pair of Vanderbilt biologists when they sequenced the genome of a virus that attacks Wolbachia, a bacterial parasite ...
Cell & Microbiology
Oct 11, 2016
0
2
A dense, collapsed star spinning 707 times per second—making it one of the fastest spinning neutron stars in the Milky Way galaxy—has shredded and consumed nearly the entire mass of its stellar companion and, in the process, ...
Astronomy
Jul 26, 2022
6
1950
A fear of spiders, arachnophobia, is in our DNA. You don't learn to freeze at the site of these creatures; you're born with the fear. Even the sight of hypodermic needles and houseflies does not trigger a similar response. ...
Significantly more women than men move out when their partners pass away. This, according to a University of Copenhagen study that investigates the settlement patterns of Danish widows and widowers. According to the researcher, ...
Social Sciences
Apr 17, 2023
0
89
Spiders are one of the most successful groups of 'invaders' on the planet. Out of over 47,000 species of spiders known today, there are some that tend to follow humans across the globe and settle in habitats far away from ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 11, 2019
1
5
Researchers at Northwestern University and San Diego State University (SDSU) have better unraveled the complex process of how black widow spiders transform proteins into steel-strength fibers. This knowledge promises to aid ...
Materials Science
Oct 22, 2018
3
334
Secret codes and hidden messages aren't just for computer security experts or kids passing notes in class—animals use them too. The telltale red hourglass of the black widow spider sends a warning signal that some animals ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 29, 2016
0
330
The flashing of a nearby star has drawn MIT astronomers to a new and mysterious system 3,000 light years from Earth. The stellar oddity appears to be a new "black widow binary"—a rapidly spinning neutron star, or pulsar, ...
Astronomy
May 4, 2022
1
1829
(PhysOrg.com) -- According to a new study published in Animal Behaviour, a male black widow spider is able to identify a female spider that has eaten well by simply taking a few steps on the web she spins. Finding a well-fed ...
