caffeine

There’s been a lot of talk lately about spider silk. Shawls made from spider silk. Genetically modified goats that produce spider silk milk. Its super  strong stuff and incredibly interesting for the future of high performance textiles. Great stuff, but I think we need to take the time to remember the important scientific work of seeing what happens to a spider’s web making ability under the influence of drugs.

I’m not talking about Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. I’m talking about Spiders that were tricked into getting cranked up off of flies injected with various ‘recreational’ drugs. What’s interesting here is the spider’s determination to make a web, but impaired organizational skills. Disturbing that the caffeine is one of the most disruptive. The bonus picture in color is a web made by spiders under the influence of drugs injected by parasitic wasps.