The spider that was high on marijuana did a fair job weaving, but then got bored or distracted and didn't finish. The one on speed went really fast, of course, but without much awareness of the overall picture: it left large gaps. The acid-trippy spider wove a psychedelic, symmetrical web which was very pretty but not great at catching bugs.
And that brings us to caffeine. Wow. As I sit here typing, a large cup of coffee beside my laptop, I, well, I don't really want it anymore.
The NASA scientists suggested the possibility of analyzing the periodic structure of the spiderwebs (or lack thereof) as a means of determining the relative toxicity levels of drugs. They do not seem to have continued down that road, however; one obstacle may have been the difficulty of extrapolating a given drug's toxicity to humans from its toxicity to spiders. Though similarities between effects on the two species do seem to exist, I'm not sure caffeine makes me feel quite like THAT. In fact, if I wove spiderwebs, that one would probably be pre-morning-cup-of-coffee.
Such questions as what the research had to do with space shuttles or Mars rovers, where the scientists got the drugs, and what happened to the spiders later unfortunately cannot be answered here. The relevant NASA briefs are cited by other academic papers and New Scientist Magazine, but aren't themselves published on the web. The world wide one, that is.
The studies in spider web are old 70's and 80's
ReplyDeletenever have seen one with caffeine
disturbing wis worst than the LSD effect
small number of samples? perhaps
bwahahaha. this is AMAZING. wow. am suddenly feeling very smug about my anti-caffeine habits, although... lsd isn't looking so bad. i'd probably starve to death (my spider-self, that is), but at least i'd look cool doing it.
ReplyDeletei guess one crucial missing piece of info, in addition to matters of toxicity, is a sense of how big the doses were. maybe that spider imbibed the equivalent of twenty double espressos...
i think they "sprayed" the drugs onto the spiders? not sure what that means, but i bet they sprayed an equal quantity of all. this is NASA we're talking about, they don't make mistakes...
ReplyDeleteno ?
ReplyDelete14 astronauts less
and several spiders
ReplyDeleteyes i was definitely joking. but i guess NASA mistakes are often too serious to joke about.
ReplyDeleteoften too serious to joke about, well if people make jokes about the 20 millions in ethiopia in the 80's
ReplyDeleteand with natural disasters that kill and maim or disfigure ten's of thousands
Nasa mistakes are only a drop of water in a ocean of killing mistakes
Oh my god, please tell me you have seen this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHzdsFiBbFc
As well as determining the devastating effects of caffeine, the scientists were able to conclude that eating flies is a good idea.
ReplyDelete