1,175 results
1,175 results for: Spiders
- Life
Grasshoppers’ terror outlives them
After an existence plagued by predatory spiders, the insects pass into oblivion, leaving a legacy of impoverished soil.
-
Infection divides two wasp species
Two tiny wasp species provide the best evidence yet that infection by Wolbachia bacteria can play a role in forming species.
-
Did males get bigger or females smaller?
It's time to stop assuming that standard gender differences in birds come from males getting bigger rather than from females getting smaller.
-
Hungry spiders tune up web jiggliness
Octonoba spiders tune the sensitivity of their webs according to how hungry they are.
-
Hey, we’re richer than we thought!
The latest inventory of life in the United States has turned up an extra 100,000 species of plants, animals, and fungi.
-
Spider real estate wars: Wake up early
Big spiders in a colony get prime real estate day after day by spinning webs early.
- Agriculture
Bt corn variety OK for black swallowtails
The first published field study of butterflies and genetically altered corn finds no harm to black swallowtail caterpillars from a common corn variety.
- Paleontology
For past climate clues, ask a stalag-mite
Mites fossilized in cave formations in the American Southwest show that at times during the past 3,200 years the climate there was much wetter and cooler.
-
Funnel-web males send knockouts in air
Male funnel-web spiders seem to waft some kind of gas toward females that renders the females limp, enabling the males to mate without being eaten.
-
The trouble with small male spiders
A test of an old view of sexual cannibalism—that it's a way of rejecting suitors—finds that small males lose out, but not from attacks by females.
- Health & Medicine
Scrambled Drugs: Transgenic chickens could lay golden eggs
Scientists have created transgenic chickens able to produce foreign proteins—and, potentially, pharmaceuticals—in their eggs.
- Materials Science
Spinning Fine Threads: Silkworms coerced to make better silk
The caterpillars that spin commercial silk can make tougher or more elastic threads, depending on how fast they're forced to spin.
