5mo ago

TIL Earth's electric field can make spiders propel into the air and fly across entire oceans

www.pbs.org

Spiders fly on the currents of Earth's electric field

Today I Learned (TIL) @lemmit.online

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5mo ago

TIL that SPIDERS have the capability to "fly" across oceans. They are capable of using both the earth's electromagnetic field, and the wind to fly in a process known as "ballooning".

www.pbs.org /newshour/science/spiders-fly-on-the-currents-of-earths-electric-field

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Spiders don’t have wings, but they can fly across entire oceans on long strands of silk. For more than a century, scientists thought it was the wind that carried them, sometimes as high as a jet stream — in a process known as “ballooning.” A new study shows that the Earth’s electric field can propel these flying spiders too.
The study, published Thursday in the journal Current Biology, found that when spiders are in a chamber with no wind, but a small electric field, they are likely to prep for take-off, or even fly. Plus, the sensory hairs covering the spiders’ bodies move when the electric field is turned on — much like your own hair stands up due to static electricity. This “spidey sense” could be how the creatures know it’s time to fly.
This makes spiders only the second known arthropod species, after bees, to sense and use electric fields. Because humans don’t feel Earth’s electric field, its role in biology is often overlooked, said Erica Morley, the study’s lead author.
…
- There is evidence that the human brain can detect magnetic fields on an unconscious level, although it's far from settled science.
  https://www.science.org/content/article/humans-other-animals-may-sense-earth-s-magnetic-field
  I think it is entirely possible that we have vestigial magnetosensitivity from hundreds of millions of years ago. If that is so, however, it gives us the potential to redevelop it in the future.
  There's also a way to fake it- people have made haptic "compasses," wearable devices like belts which vibrate north at all times. I remember reading many years ago about the first scientists to develop the technology and the first person (one of the scientists) to try it out, and he said that he was able to know where north was for a long time afterward.
  I should say I was only talking about the first part when I meant faking it. We really don't know if wearing the device made him temporarily (I think it was temporary) magnetosensitive or if he just got so used to where north was in his daily routines that it was just memory.
  
  I think we use it, just not consciously. It's not like knowing where north is helps much, but aligning your mental map of an area means a lot
  Have you ever come out of a forest or something not where you expected, then had a moment of disorientation before everything snaps into place and you realize exactly where you are?
  
  That would explain my drunk human trick. You can get me drunk, blindfold me, and spin me in circles. I will then unerringly point to North. I always know where North is. Even when I'm rebooting after just waking up.
- This makes spiders only the second known arthropod species, after bees, to sense and use electric fields.
  But birds use the magnetic field to navigate, correct?
  Because humans don’t feel Earth’s electric field, its role in biology is often overlooked.
  Speaking of the magnetic field, there is purportedly an Aboriginal group in Australia that uses a subjective form of orientation terminology baked into their language or syntax, that forces their speakers to maintain an intricate and complex awareness of their surroundings and place in them.
  Anyway... these people seem to be able to sense fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field, for example - they can tell when a solar storm is hitting the atmosphere.
  
  Birds aren't arthropods. They're theropods.
So what I am leaning from this headline is the zombie spiders in Ireland can fly across oceans and get to me.
Great. Thanks Trump!
- Worse it means technically the spiders in Australia are necessarily trapped there. Also the fact that spiders can fly is nightmares fuel.
  
  Also the fact that spiders can fly is nightmares fuel.
  In your mouth several times a year.
  
  I don't know if it's better or worse that they don't have wings to fly indoors like some cockroaches
  
  Up there with swimming snakes and flying squirrels
- Honestly, at this point, what an incredible end that would be. So much cooler than what's likely coming.
Hooray. This brought up one of the less pleasant memories from my childhood involving the natural world.
My room was in the basement of the house. It was only a half-finished basement and my room took up most of the finished half. But because it was only half finished, spiders were not a stranger to my room.
One day, I woke up and my face was weirdly itchy. I turned on the light and a billion little transparent baby spiders were hanging all over the room by little threads! I freaked the fuck out and ran upstairs and slept on the couch for two days. Thankfully, they were gone when I went back down.
- They weren't gone, you just couldn't see them.
  
  As long as they kept to themselves and didn't crawl on my face en masse, or at least wake me up while doing it, that's okay with me.
- Are… are you okay? Like do you need some mental help. I think I would need to visit a psych ward after something like that. Hell seeing arachnophobia as a kid messed me up let alone actually living out a version of it in real life.
  
  It was over 30 years ago, so I have overcome the PTSD.
- Oof ive had similar happen to me, not a fun time lol. They were so tiny too!
  I guess I'm just glad I wasn't their mother or they might have tried to eat me.
The real reason the Titanic sank is they sailed through a Spidercloud, and the captain freaked out and swerved into it.
What the fuck do they think is happening? “Wow, sure has been a long time since I started hurdling through fucking space”
- I doubt they have the brain capacity to think of much beyond "food/mate this direction."
  
  Spiders have been proven to have enough intelligence to recognize other life forms that are both much smaller, and much larger than them. This is something that most other insects fail at.
  https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/07/harvard-study-shows-that-jumping-spiders-can-identify-biological-motion/
Sounds like some shit you'd see in Morrowind
its nice to know spiders are crossing the oceans to get me.
Ride The Lightning
How did they test this? How did the know that Chuck left Japan and ended up in Oregon?
- Just put an airtag on it!
Do you know that feeling when you walk outside and suddenly have a random spiderweb-strain in your face? You need to wipe it out of your face with a hand. Maybe this was my spidery flying friend using electric fields to fly past my face.
how can they survive?
- Most spiders can go a long time without eating, and most are too small to be killed from falling to the ground
  
  hm … how far of a fall can ants survive? Is it because of their low body-mass compared to their surface area?
- If they aren't doing anything, they dont need any energy.
  Also, probably not all of them do.

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