Monday 18 November 2013

Spider webs on drugs

In 1995, a group of NASA scientists tested the effects of various drugs on a common garden spider’s ability to build webs. Specifically, they got the spiders high on caffeine, marijuana, benzedrine (speed), and chloral hydrate (a common date rape drug) and then analyzed their webs to figure out which drug did the most damage. To the surprise of Dr. Noever, caffeine did the most damage of all the substances tested. The spider dosed with it proved incapable of creating even a single organized cell, and its web showed no sign of the “hub and spokes” pattern fundamental to conventional web design.

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