Posted on 07/05/2018 11:01:28 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Sometimes, when it rains or when they feel the urge to migrate, spiders get out their little silk knapsacks, and balloon away.
This ballooning behaviour is well understood by spider scientists, but researchers have recently discovered that electric fields can not only trigger the behaviour, but also provide lift – even without the slightest breeze...
They travel via the atmospheric potential gradient (APG), an electric circuit between Earth and the ionosphere - the part of Earth's upper atmosphere that's ionised by solar radiation.
Thunderstorms act like a giant battery for the APG, charging up and maintaining the electric fields in the atmosphere.
The researchers explain that the idea of ballooning behaviour being caused by this electric circuit was first floated in the 1800's, but had been dismissed not long after, without being tested...
Morley and Roberts... caught spiders from the genius Erigone from a balloon trap, and set up an experiment without stimuli such as air movement or atmospheric electricity. Then they turned on an artificial electric field and watched what would happen.
The team did indeed find that the spiders went ballooning when the field was on, and the field's electrostatic forces alone were enough to power the movement; it's the same force that lifts up your hair if you rub a balloon on your head.
When the researchers switched off the electric field, the spiders would glide down; turning the field on made them move upwards (those spiders would have been so confused)...
Spiders have sensory hairs called trichobothria that would move in response to the electric field, which the researchers believe is what the spiders use to detect the APG.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencealert.com ...
Unless they think in binary, then $00-$FF.
“With today’s high altitude jetstream turbulence the following States are being evacuated from what is expected to be the worst spider rain of the century....”
As if Sharknado wasn’t enough. OMG flying electric spiders!
Heh... among other things.
They aren’t space aliens.
They’re the Spider Civilization.
And later, David Bowie.
Just another reason to destroy all spiders, before they destroy us!!
I was not fast enough!
:D
/SpooderLuv
Yep.
5.56mm
If Speilberg (or anyone), in the spirit of Hollywood (which has difficulties coming up with new ideas) ever rebooted the B2tF franchise, it would be amusing to have to keep a container of Beano for the Mr. Fusion.
That would be...awesome.
Spiderman Spiderman...
5.56mm
We should nuke them from orbit while we still have the chance.
They keep down the population of insects, otherwise we'd be buried and forgotten by now.
That’s how we get to Pluto!
They're from Mars.
As if the Demagogic Party weren't enough -- flying electric spiders! Hmm, that works with everything...
See? Napalm has some good applications.
[singing] Let it rain, let it rain, let arachnids rain on me...[/sing].
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