81–90 of 143 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Portia spiders are also referenced in Peter Watts' Echopraxia. (Some spoilers could be inferred from thinking about this too hard while reading the novel.)
Yep! Watts' novels are how I first heard about Portia. I can't wait for the third in the trilogy. In general, I love a good novel with a bibliography.
Last I saw, was what looked like a video game based on Blindsight.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In English is it correct to say spiders are insects? In my native language (portuguese) it would be not accurate, as they are arachnida class, along with scorpions,mites and ticks.
A good word for something that encompasses all things creepy, crawly and tiny without involving scientific classification is "bug". Most english would agree that most spiders, ants, bees, centipedes and other like it are all bugs. This breaks down in Australia where the spiders are as big as your head or in Puerto Rico where the foot long centipedes eat bats. Those aren't bugs, those are nightmare fuel.
But the OP is right, of course. Spiders are not insects. Although I suspect that most people I'd talk to in the UK would call them such. I'll have to hand in my Pedant's Society card (which is actually made out of plastic)...
Highly relevant is the Portia genus of spiders ([0], [1]) and apparently other related jumping spiders ([2]). One of my favorite excerpts from [1]: > Harland says Portia’s eyesight is the place to start. Jumping spiders already have excellent vision and Portia’s is ten times as good, making it sharper than most mammals. However being so small, there is a trade-off in that Portia can only focus its eyes on a tiny spot…
Portia spiders are also referenced in Peter Watts' Echopraxia. (Some spoilers could be inferred from thinking about this too hard while reading the novel.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe something along the lines of "our brains would overheat" - there's a small temperature window in which proteins won't denature, it takes k T log 2 joules to erase one bit of information (Landauer's principle), and our brain uses around 20 Watts of power. Maybe tin foil hats make good heatsinks.. Interestingly enough there is some evidence that the Gibbs free energy of ketone metabolism is more thermodynamically…
Doesn't that imply that people who live in hotter climates have...how can I put this politely?...a disadvantage when it comes to the stability of their brains? I would assume that the brain has a certain amount of redundancy, but has this ever been researched: How hot can it get before people start getting noticeably "stupider"?
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heat-stroke/ba...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe something along the lines of "our brains would overheat" - there's a small temperature window in which proteins won't denature, it takes k T log 2 joules to erase one bit of information (Landauer's principle), and our brain uses around 20 Watts of power. Maybe tin foil hats make good heatsinks.. Interestingly enough there is some evidence that the Gibbs free energy of ketone metabolism is more thermodynamically…
That's interesting indeed - is there any chance there's a connection between ketone metabolism being more efficient and 'hungry intelligence'? http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/magazine/10section1C.t-1.h...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For people who don't believe that spiders can be cute: https://adlayasanimals.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/u2byv.jpg Also, I got interested and tried to find some documentation on Portia Labiata after reading Watts' book, and there's very, very little, but what he says appears to be true. They do have telescopic eyes with vibrating retinas. They do spend ages painstakingly scanning a scene before moving. They are absu…
In English is it correct to say spiders are insects? In my native language (portuguese) it would be not accurate, as they are arachnida class, along with scorpions,mites and ticks.
In real life many people call spiders insects, either from ignorance or from not caring about the distinction.
Eusocial insects like honeybees, some wasps, and ants take this even one step further by combining the extraordinary but limited powers of one individual insect to make highly-complex decisions with the coordinated input from thousands or millions of individuals. It's often stated that after humans, these eusocial insects are the most advanced life form on earth. After studying, for example, the fascinating voting pr…
This makes it reasonable to think of the hive as one individual!
Just like we are made of individual cells and organs, an ant hill is made up of individual ants. That the parts can move separately is a fairly superficial difference.
Here's a video of the bumblebee string pulling behaviour to get at the "nectar": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSCr5OxXN1A . Quite extraordinary.
> Other bumblebees learned by observing trained demonstrators from a distance. Only a small minority solved the task spontaneously. The experiments suggest that learning a nonnatural task in bumblebees can spread culturally through populations.
Highly relevant is the Portia genus of spiders ([0], [1]) and apparently other related jumping spiders ([2]). One of my favorite excerpts from [1]: > Harland says Portia’s eyesight is the place to start. Jumping spiders already have excellent vision and Portia’s is ten times as good, making it sharper than most mammals. However being so small, there is a trade-off in that Portia can only focus its eyes on a tiny spot…
It can mimic the footsteps of other spiders by plucking the web of the spider it's going to kill.
Doesn't the name comes from Portia in the Merchant of Venice a devious character?
Jumping spiders are cool we have the stripy ones in my region. Spider give me the creeps but not jumping spiders I think it's due to the shorter legs and small size.