Handicapping a genuine fight is not always as easy as it seems. As in other endeavors, much of the “everybody knows” knowledge ain’t necessarily so. Consider this case study from the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts: “Eunuchs as better fighters?” Simona Kralj-Fišer [pictured here] and Matjaž Kuntner, Naturwissenschaften, Volume 99, […]
Tag: spider
Keep your eye on the spider, and the spider off your eye
From Leeds and London comes a new medical horror story: “A Hairy Affair: Tarantula Setae-Induced Panuveitis Requiring Pars Plana Vitrectomy,” Anindita Hom-Choudhury, Antigoni Koukkoulli, Jonathan H. Norris, Bataung Mokete and Oliver C. Backhouse, International Ophthalmology, epub January 6, 2012. The authors, at University Hospital, Leed and at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London, report: “Cases of ocular […]
Engineering: Charlotte’s Web
Google Books classifies E.B. White’s classic children’s book Charlotte’s Web under the general heading “Technology and Engineering” (see portion of their screen, reproduced below). Many readers would agree, one way or another.
The spider and the 747
It is suggested that one strand of pencil thick spider silk can stop a Boeing 747 in flight. So says the study “Molecular spring: from spider silk to silkworm silk,” Xiang Wu, Xiang-Yang Liu, Ning Du, Gang-Qin Xu, Bao-Wen Li, arxiv.org/abs/0902.3518, 2009. The study tries to explain why this is so (or at least approximately […]