Friday 22 June 2007

More warp than weft.

We were having an end of semester drink at Uni today and somehow the conversation found its way around to spiders and what happens to their webs under the influence of drugs. Well, we are psychology students, do you expect us to talk about football? Anyway, caffeine was the 'drug' of interest but the graphics above list a few others as well.
...

14 comments:

  1. really interesting about caffine... would love to hear the banter that you psychology students had on that one... think its because the spider went to quickly?

    "This is your web, this is your web on drugs... get the picture!?!??!" Did you all have that anti-drug campaign in Australia?

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is the sort of stuff we discuss at our home as well, all irrelevant "what if's?" Our teenage son especially loves it. When it comes to us with a "hi mum?" or "hi B?" we just know it's coming.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Very interesting! My adult son insists marijuana is not the evil demon I deem it to be!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Far out, man.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I find it interesting that the spider on marijuana spins the web closest to normal and caffeine is so spastic. I would have to ask the equivalent cups of coffee the amount of caffeine given to the spider, adjusted for body weight of course.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Fascinating, Lee. Interesting that the caffeine resulted in the most spaced out web.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Interesting...but was it you or the spider trying out the various tests? ;)

    ReplyDelete
  8. what fun! the caffeine one looks just about like the way my brain feels when I have a little too much buzz going on!

    ReplyDelete
  9. These are great, just how your brain does feel on those things (not that I know about ALL of them...). But yes, why no alcohol?
    Was it too difficult to get the spider to drink a glass of wine without drowning in it? Come to that how did you get it to smoke the spliff?

    ReplyDelete
  10. I was going to ask Lucy's question - so I ask again:

    How do you feed the drug to the spider?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Very small syringe? Nah, probably just paint it on and let it seep into their system. Or could always dose a fly I guess. I honestly don't know. It was a NASA experiment some years ago.

    ReplyDelete
  12. left out were a few really amazingly bizarre webs....but then, there's no sense in showing that spiders are completely different in how their bodies absorb drugs.

    Aspirin
    birth control pils
    coke
    diet coke (both different)
    vinegar

    'Course, there was never anything to try to "prove" by showing webs done with these and other benign chemicals....

    ReplyDelete
  13. ha! little, bitty starbucks cups? i imagine the spiders all hanging in a mini-living room chillin with all their various substances have deep conversations about the meaning of it all...hilarity ensues of course being spiders all tripped out!

    ReplyDelete

Moderation cuts in six days after posting.