Gigantic 25m Wide Spider Web Found In Madagascar
BBC - A newly discovered species of spider living in Madagascar makes the world's longest known web, spanning 25m.
The spider also makes the largest orb web yet found for any spider, and constructs it out of the most tough biomaterial yet known, say scientists.
Darwin's bark spider, a species new to science, weaves its huge web over flowing rivers, stretching from bank to bank.
It is so big that it can catch 30 or more prey insects at any one time.
Darwin's bark spider weaves what experts call an orb web, the most familiar spider web design.
But this web is unusual as it is the largest orb web yet known to be made by any living spider, with the largest web measuring 2.8m².
The previous largest webs are spun by orb spiders belonging to the genus Nephila. Last year a new species of giant orb weaving spider (Nephila komaci) was discovered in Africa and Madagascar that can spin webs up to 1m across.
But even that web is dwarfed by those spun by Darwin's bark spider.
"They build their web with the orb suspended directly above a river or the water body of a lake, a habitat that no other spider can use," says Professor Ingi Agnarsson, the director of the Museum of Zoology at the University of Puerto Rico, in San Juan who made the discovery with colleagues.
That allows the spiders to catch insects flying over water, and explains why the web is so long.
To reach from one bank to the other, the spider must weave anchoring lines of up to 25m.
It also helps explain why the spider must weave it from such tough material, as the huge web must support its own weight and that of any prey it captures.
Prof Agnarsson and colleague Matjaz Kuntner, who also both work at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, US, discovered the new spider species, which has the scientific name of Caerostris darwini, around the Namorona river in the Ranomafana NP and Fianarantsoa Province in eastern Madagascar.
Details of the spider and its behaviour are published in the Journal of Arachnology.
As in other related species, females dwarf the males.
The researchers found many webs spun by the spider, with most hanging vertically above the river, with some at an angles of up to 50º.
Last year, the world's oldest spider's web was found encased in amber
"Some of the webs qualify, to the best of our knowledge, as the largest spider webs ever documented," say the researchers in the journal.
Up to 32 unwrapped prey items, mainly mayflies, were found in a single web.
How the spiders spin such a huge web above water, and how they anchor their drag lines on either side of a river, is currently being researched.
Many of the webs showed obvious signs of damage and repair, while others had large open holes, suggesting that the spider maintains each web for several days.
Most orb weaving spiders take down and reconstruct their webs each day.
The spiders are able to weave such large webs, held up by such long drag lines, by using the toughest, most energy-absorbing silk ever discovered, tougher than any other known biological, and most man-made, materials.
Spider silks combine high strength with elasticity and are therefore already exceptionally tough, being able to absorb three times more energy before breaking than Kevlar, a material often used in bulletproof vests, say the researchers.
However, Darwin's bark spider weaves silk that is about 100% tougher than any other known silk, making it the toughest biological material known, say the researchers.
The have published details of the web's toughness in another scientific journal PLoS One.
Other spiders are capable of weaving giant webs.
For example, one huge web complex was found in 2007 in Texas.
But this web complex was not the work of one large spider.
Rather, millions of small ones weaved a series of interlaced webs that ended up covering an area twice the size of a football field.
**********
Idiot!
metro - Fifty-nine-year-old Mark Smith allegedly told bank workers in Watsonville, California, that he had a bomb in his backpack and that he would detonate it inside the building unless he was given $2,000.
Smith was instead convinced by the bank manager to take a loan from the branch to solve his cash flow problems.
While Smith waited patiently for the her to retrieve loan paperwork, the manager simply called emergency services.
'Quick-thinking staff kept the man calm and distracted him with some paperwork until we arrived' Ly. Darren Thompson told the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
Police arrested Smith on suspicion of attempted robbery, as well as charges of making a false bomb report. Smith was not carrying weapons of any kind, Thompson added.
**********
Real Estate Agent Showed Buyers House While Owner Lay Dead On Sofa
telegraph - Samuel Allfort said he assumed the 55-year-old woman was sleeping when he carried out the viewing at her home in Notting Hill, west London.
The estate-agent showed the would-be buyers round every room in the house but left the living room until last in the hope that Katherine Frame would wake up.
After waving goodbye to the visitors, the Marsh and Parsons employee went back into the living room because he suspected that "something wasn't right", Westminster Coroners' Court heard.
He found the homeowner totally motionless on the sofa and saw that she had turned a "yellow-ish" colour, the court heard.
In a statement read to the court, Mr Allfort said: "Marsh and Parsons were instructed by Katherine Frame to sell her property for her.
"I had an appointment to view the property at 4pm on Tuesday June 29, and I did the viewing as scheduled.
"Whilst doing the viewing I decided the leave the living room until last as it looked like someone was asleep on the sofa.
"After finishing the viewing I went outside with the applicants to say goodbye. I then went back into the property because something didn't seem right.
"Upon seeing this person again they seemed absolutely motionless and were a yellow-ish colour.
"I called an ambulance which arrived almost instantly, and the ambulance man soon told me that she had passed away."
Miss Frame was born in New Orleans in America, and had lived alone since divorcing her husband, the court heard.
She had decided to sell her Kensington house because of financial difficulties and was planning on returning to the USA.
Coroner's officer Komi Omadoye said: "Katherine Frame was a divorced single lady who had been receiving treatment and support for chronic depression for the past 23 years.
"For the past two years Miss Frame, who had been living alone since her divorce, had been unemployed following redundancy.
"Due to financial difficulties she was preparing to sell her property with a view to relocating back to the US."
Although Miss Frame had struggled for years with alcohol trouble a post-mortem revealed that there was no drink in her system when she died.
However, the examination revealed her liver was severely damaged, and pathologist Dr Peter Wilkins provided evidence to the court claiming this was the "most significant" pathological factor he found.
Recording his verdict, Assistant Deputy Coroner Dr Andrew Barton said: 'On Tuesday June 29, 2010 she was found to be lying dead at her home on the sofa in Treadgold Street in Kensington.
“I conclude that this was natural causes exacerbated by chronic excessive alcohol ingestion.”
NOTE: I wonder if she comes with the house now?
**********
St.Paul, MN Man Arrested For Flying 'UFO' Kite
twincities - The man whose LED-lighted kite made some people think there was a UFO over St. Paul was back to his old hobby this week and ran into trouble.
St. Paul police received reports this summer about unidentified lights in the sky. They found the source on Aug. 20. Ernest Sawka Jr., 34, was flying a kite with small lights attached to a long string.
On that night, officers saw a warrant had been issued for Sawka's arrest, unrelated to the kite flying. He had pleaded guilty to gross misdemeanor theft and was supposed to turn himself in to serve time at the Ramsey County workhouse but hadn't.
Sawka served his time and got out of the workhouse Sunday, he said.
About 11 p.m. Monday, two people waved down officers, saying they "saw an unidentified object in the air" in the area of Minnehaha Avenue and Etna Street, said St. Paul police spokesman Andy Skoogman. "Our officers knew right away it was a kite with lights on it" because they were aware of the previous case.
Officers checked the area and found Sawka near Etna Street and Reaney Avenue, Skoogman said. He was flying a kite with blue lights on it, on a string that "was hundreds of feet long," he said.
"Our officers asked him if he was trying to get a rise out of the public by flying his kite at night and he nodded yes," Skoogman said. "He may think it's funny, but we think it's a waste of our resources."
Police cited Sawka for disorderly conduct, public nuisance and being in a playground after hours.
Wednesday, Sawka denied telling officers he was trying to get a rise out of the public. "I was doing it because I enjoy doing it, I think it's cool. I don't care what the public thinks," he said.
Sawka said he had asked the officers who stopped him in August whether his kite flying was illegal.
"They said, 'No, we think it's pretty cool,' " Sawka said. On Monday, when officers approached him, Sawka said he "was nothing but polite" and told them, "If this is illegal, just let me know," but he said they gave him a hard time and confiscated the kite.
One officer told Sawka, "If I catch you doing this again, I'll come and find you and put you in jail," the man said.
Sawka said he'd like to fight the citation.
"Hopefully, the judge will say, 'You're here for flying a kite?' and drop the case," he said.
Sawka said in August that he'd been sending lighted kites into the sky around St. Paul for about two years. He would put a "kite up a couple hundred feet and then start tying lights to the string," he said. They're "little LED bullet lights," Sawka said.
The St. Paul man said he didn't set out to make people believe a UFO was above their heads.
**********
Candidate Once Stated Scientists Have Created Mice With Human Brains!
TPM - Delaware Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell has previously sounded the alarm against cloning and stem-cell research -- and what she's described as the current terror of human-mouse hybrids.
We previously noted that O'Donnell had attacked her primary opponent, Congressman Mike Castle, based on his support for stem-cell research. But it turns out that her interest in the subject goes back much further. O'Donnell appeared in 2007 on The O'Reilly Factor, to speak out against such research in response to the cloning of some monkeys. Then came her warning on human-mouse hybrids.
"They are -- they are doing that here in the United States. American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains. So they're already into this experiment."
It's possible that O'Donnell was misremembering this 2005 report on scientists who successfully grew human brain cells within mice -- which is not the same as an actual functioning human brain, but a demonstration that human brain cells can be made from stem cells.
Fortean / Oddball News - 9/17/2010
