Your puny space shuttles are as toys to our powerful invertebrate overlords.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
Thanks to BoingBoing for this great video of Mr George the SuperMagnetMan, vendor of all manner of high quality, super-powerful magnets. As he demonstrates in this video, these magnets aren't toys! Or rather they are toys, albeit ones powerful enough to crush your puny, fleshy fingers. The…
In his role pinch-hitting as The Daily Show anchor while Jon Stewart directs a feature film called Rosewater, John Oliver has demonstrated a candid, hilarious fury that is unmatched in its impact by Stewart's usual well-meant silliness. People have called Stephen Colbert the heir to 1950's…
Threadless is a great site where people submit shirt designs, and highly rated designs are printed and sold. Brilliant, beautiful shirts are readily available there.
To their great credit, our Seed overlords have partnered with Threadless. Submit up to three designs on the theme "Science is…
Be careful there are 9 new species of carnivorous sponges. Luckily they are all deep sea so your chances of encountering one on any day are limited. But when the squid overlords take over they may call upon the sponges for the battle. You may not be scared but Vacelet (2006) describes how these…
Looks a bit like the two-inch long spider I felt crawling along my inner thigh inside my sweat pants the other day.
Kinda freaked me out a little.
I'd like to point out that one of the Bad Astronomer's best posts of the year is up today.
Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2007
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/12/13/top-ten-astronomy-picture…
Oh I don't know... I'd rather look at a beautiful galaxy, nebula, or star cluster through a telescope than a disgusting bug through a microscope any day.
Bugs aren't disgusting. I spent an entire summer counting mosquitoes from traps, and I can tell you there were a lot of amazing insects and such that got into the traps along with them.
What's more, being able to vertically straight up in the air
the spider has conquered gravity.
"Oh I don't know... I'd rather look at a beautiful galaxy, nebula, or star cluster through a telescope than a disgusting bug through a microscope any day."
I appreciate observing astronomical bodies, too -- although I don't think I'll ever do so using Phil "Skepdude" Plait's telescope!
I feel compelled to point out, however, as someone who spends 8+ hours per day every day looking at insects and other invertebrates through a microscope, I have yet to find one I would call disgusting.
All hail our new arachnid overlords!
Craig [#1] - actually, it probably wasn't that big. Its silhouette and behavior are very suggestive of it being a jumping spider, like this one (the grid squares are one millimeter, so it is only about a quarter of an inch long).
Oh yeah, that's a salticid for sure. Even I, a lonely astronomy type, can see that.
@PZ:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=hr110-847
We've apparently passed a House Resolution "supporting Christianity." Fun, ain't it?
Okay I'll admit that what may be gross and icky to me may be fascinating to someone else and that's okay. My wife for example is grossed out by rodents but I find them cute. My whole point was that while I could spend hours looking through a telescope, I'd just as soon avoid creepy crawlies. It was just a reaction to the "Biology trumps Astronomy again" headline.
Hey! Don't confuse what the Shuttle does these days with astronomy. The only astronomy mission left is the one next year to service Hubble.
And laying claim to spiders is a stretch for you, my cephalopodulous friend.
Not least of all becauce giant spiders come from space and/or exposure to cosmic radiation.
Well, tceisele, I wish you could identify the spider that was in my pants. Sucker was bigger than anything I've seen around here before. Tried to identify it by looking online, go basically nowhere, though I did figure out it was probably a "she."
Kept it in a jar for a couple days trying to figure out how to let it go outside without it freezing. After a while I decided she was pretty beautiful. Long hairy legs, the way it moved etc. looked like a mini-tarantula.
Craig: Did you try using the spider ID pages at BugGuide? It's really useful for getting at least some idea what kind of spider you have. Also, where are you located? If you are in the general vicinity of Michigan, at a wild guess I'd say there's a good chance it was a European House Spider, a Wolf Spider, or maybe one of the north american Funnel-Web Weaver Spiders. All harmless, of course. Those are the biggest, fuzziest, most-likely-to-be-wandering-about types of spiders that I know of in the Midwest.
How is this not a violation of the separation and establishment clauses of the Constitution? Is it because it is a "resolution" and not a law?
Phil (#11): "cephalopodulous"?!? It's a good thing we like you...
:-)
Gex (#15): Very simply, yes. It remains, however, a clear violation of common sense and good taste.
Well, tceisele, I wish you could identify the spider that was in my pants.
Best pickup line I've heard all day.
"I, for one, welcome our new arachnid overlords."
Awwww, isn't she cute!
From BugGuide:
Jumping Spider:
http://bugguide.net/index.php?q=search&keys=jumping+spider
Wouldn't "cephalopendulous" be better?
Awww man, wish I'd known about that site 2 days ago before I let her go.
I'm in NY, but she may have hitched a ride in my stuff from FL.
B-L-A-S-P-H-E-M-Y !!!!!!
The stars ain't gonna like this. Repent, bug-lovers
before it is too late.
:P
Unfortunately, the spider in MY pants was there when I was in them too.
Didn't go so well for me. As in "most painful experience in my (admittedly lucky) life." :/
OK, I think the bug guide is my new favorite site.
` OH MYLANTA!! It's a giant, out-of-focus spider climbing on an invisible web!!
Kinda?!? KINDA!?!
"We'll, if NASA won't come to the Tarantula Nebula, the Tarantula Nebula must come to..." ooch ouch, my sense of taste just bit me!
ant-arse, I mean, antaresrichard
A spider sucking on a space shuttle, that's something I have never seen before.
PZ, kindly warn us when you link to a site that shows giant spiders. I don't think the guys in the lab across the quadrangle heard my shriek of terror!
Urgh, spiders... *shudder* Craig @13: There is nothing beautiful about long hairy legs, especially when attached to a spider!
Yes Johnny Vector, you are correct. The spider is a salticid, a.k.a. a jumping spider. Even I, Lepidopterist with an additional background in Arachnology can plainly discern this.
Too bad its not the biggest ph*****g Phidippus ever. In head on view, many species have wonderful metallic green chelicerae (fangs).
I, for one, welcome our new Powerful Invertebrate Overlords.