Neuroscience
From the Associated Press, a report of curious cooperative behavior ... or merely a fluke:
Spiders Create Giant Web
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 30, 2007
Filed at 7:02 a.m. ET
WILLS POINT, Texas (AP) -- Entomologists are debating the origin and rarity of a sprawling spider web that blankets several trees, shrubs and the ground along a 200-yard stretch of trail in a North Texas park.
Officials at Lake Tawakoni State Park say the massive mosquito trap is a big attraction for some visitors, while others won't go anywhere near it.
''At first, it was so white it looked like fairyland,'' said Donna Garde, superintendent of the park about 45 miles east of Dallas. ''Now it's filled with so many mosquitoes that it's turned a little brown. There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs.''
Spider experts say the web may have been constructed by social cobweb spiders, which work together, or could be the result of a mass dispersal in which the arachnids spin webs to spread out from one another.
[ ... Read the full report ... ]
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Neuroscience
The Social Behavior of Spiders?
From the Associated Press, a report of curious cooperative behavior ... or merely a fluke:
Spiders Create Giant Web
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 30, 2007
Filed at 7:02 a.m. ET
WILLS POINT, Texas (AP) -- Entomologists are debating the origin and rarity of a sprawling spider web that blankets several trees, shrubs and the ground along a 200-yard stretch of trail in a North Texas park.
Officials at Lake Tawakoni State Park say the massive mosquito trap is a big attraction for some visitors, while others won't go anywhere near it.
''At first, it was so white it looked like fairyland,'' said Donna Garde, superintendent of the park about 45 miles east of Dallas. ''Now it's filled with so many mosquitoes that it's turned a little brown. There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs.''
Spider experts say the web may have been constructed by social cobweb spiders, which work together, or could be the result of a mass dispersal in which the arachnids spin webs to spread out from one another.
[ ... Read the full report ... ]
- Hanging Out With Virtual Reality Spiders Helps Arachnophobes See Real Spiders As Smaller And Less Scary
By guest blogger Melissa Hogenboom A little fear can be a good thing but when it develops into a phobia, it can become debilitating. One way therapists treat fear disorders is using a technique called exposure therapy. As its name suggests, it involves...
- Link Feast
In case you missed them - 10 of the best psychology and neuroscience links from the past week: You know the Prisoners' Dilemma game that's used in behavioural economics? They just tested it on actual prisoners and found them to be more cooperative...
- I Married A Robot
Metal Men No. 17 December 1965 / January 1966 Cover: Metal Men trapped in web as Doc Magnus gives wedding ring to Black Widow Spider robot Story: "I Married a Robot" (25 pages) Editor, writer: Robert Kanigher Penciller: Ross Andru Inker: Mike Esposito...
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From the BBC‘Over-friendly' brain clues found Scientists have uncovered clues about what happens in the brain to make some people "over-friendly". US National Institute of Mental Health experts looked at differences in the brains of people with...
- Review: Louise Barrett's "beyond The Brain"
There are a lot of books about embodied cognition. Like psychology itself, the idea that cognition might not all be in the head has fractured off into about 5 distinct flavours, most of them quite annoying and pointless.There are also quite a few books...