Here is the Ig Informal Lecture by the winner of the 2020 Ig Nobel Entomology Prize. The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK. In the Ig Informal Lectures, some days after the ceremony, the new Ig Nobel Prize winners attempt to explain what they did, and why they did it. [In non-pandemic years, […]
Tag: spiders
Seeing Spider/Antman Movies Lessen Fear of Bugs?
What power over the minds of humans lurks in bug-human-hybrid superhero movies? One study, at least, asks that question. The study is: ” ‘Spidey Can’: Preliminary Evidence Showing Arachnophobia Symptom Reduction Due to Superhero Movie Exposure,” Yaakov S.G. Hoffman, Shani Pitcho-Prelorentzos, Lia Ring, and Menachem Ben-Ezra, Frontiers in Psychiatry, epub 2019. The authors, at Bar-Ilan […]
Some observations on the mental powers of spiders
Behold, from 1887, a disquisition on certain powers of certain multi-legged individuals: “Some observations on the mental powers of spiders,” George W. and Elizabeth G. Peckham, Journal of Morphology, vol. 1, no. 2 (1887): 383-419. The Peckhams say, early on: “So, also, we have found that to learn anything of the mental processes of spiders […]
When mailing spiders, caterpillars, or cockroaches
QUESTION: When you mail live creatures, insects and invertebrates (including bees, caterpillars, cockroaches, crickets, destroyers of noxious pests, earthworms, fish fry and eggs, leeches and other parasites, lugworms, maggots, mealworms, pupae and chrysalides, rag worms, silkworms, spiders and stick insects) in the UK, must you box and package them? The answer lies on page 26 of the Royal Mail‘s […]
Skuse on British stalk-eyed crustacea & spiders
“Every living creature is said to have its use, its beneficial part to play in the economy of nature.” So says page 117 of the book British stalk-eyed crustacea and spiders: with an account of their structure, classification and habitats,written by F.A.A. Skuse, and published in 1887.
The scariness of spiders to people scared of spiders
Here is one way to measure people’s fear of spiders. Post flyers seeking individuals who are very afraid of spiders, and who are willing to be paid a small amount of cash to participate in a research project, said project turning out to be the repeated answering of survey questions before and during the following activities: 1 approaching […]
The Case of the Bagel, the Bite, and the Ticking Clock
“A New, Occasional Instrument for Measuring Marital Quality: The Time Required to Make a Cream Cheese and Salmon Bagel Following Funnel-Web Spider Bite,” Gary Walter, Medical Journal of Australia, vol. 171, nos. 11–12, December 6–20, 1999, pp. 674–5. [AIR 16:2] The author is a psychiatrist in Concord West, NSW, Australia. His firsthand account includes a […]