Here are some discoveries fished out from a week of travels on the Internet… spiders, biodiversity, and so much more. Enjoy!  (past editions of Expiscor can be found here)

• Some love for wolf spiders on Why Evolution is True. Yes, Lycosidae females are remarkable in carrying wee spiderlings around on their abdomen.

• Spider research in the 21st Century. Now that’s a book Araneologists will like on their bookshelf! I will order mine soon.

• Harmless spiders: It was a big week for my blog post on “Spiders do not Bite” – it showed up on Reddit and this resulted in almost 3,000 hits in a single day (a record-breaking day for me!). In those Reddit comments, someone posted the paper about a house in Kansas with over 2,000 brown recluse spiders. Guess what: NO envenomations occurred.

• Keep calm and kill them with fire. The comments on Reddit remind me that many people don’t like insects and spiders and will do a lot to kill them. (sigh).  Gotta love Bug Girl’s “Incredibly Bad Ideas” (this week, featured a wildfire in Arizona started because kids tried to kill ants by burning them….)

• A spider hunt on the beach. Some lovely jumping spiders were found!

• Spidernauts. Had a nice chat this past week with Christina Russo about behaviour of jumping spiders in space. More specifically, we talked about Phidippus johnsoni – a species that went to space!   Do you think it’s just a coincident that that species was selected and that there’s a Johnson Space Center? Curious about how jumping spiders move in space? Have a look…

• So much paranoia about insects over the past week!  First up, CRAZY ANTS EAT ELECTRONICS!  Um, calm down everyone. Here’s the real story. Alex Wild also has also written about these crazy ants.

• Over in Florida – GIANT MUTANT MOSQUITOES!  IT’S SKEETER-GEDON. Um, calm down everyone, here’s the real story. (thanks UF Entomology!)

• Speaking of UF Entomology -they tweeted a lovely video of a black widow spider.

• How about those beetles in Canada! Here’s a pretty impressive list of new records!

• An avenue of ghosts in Cambridge – it’s all about the insects, really.

• Stunning, and I mean STUNNING biodiversity illustrations.

• Speaking of stunning, Alex Wild took some incredible photographs of a white-eyed Drosophila mutant.

• Get your buzz on.  Even CBC radio is in the mood to talk about Cicadas! (by the way, if you don’t listen to Tom Allen’s show in the afternoons… you should!)

• Crickets and the subway: I was reading Adam Gopnik’s “Paris to the Moon” and a reference was made to crickets staying ‘warm’ underground by living near the rail tracks. True story?  (More here about the secrets of the Paris Metro…)

• An Arctic puzzle: Aphids, Willow, Geese & Climate change. Fascinating article. (thanks to Matt Hill for alerting me to that paper)

• On the topic of the Arctic – Nansen’s legacy lives on. Incredible what Nansen explored…

• Hairy Mites! Macromite has a new post up. 

• How about Biodiversity & Beer. Species rarity, niches and so much more explained with beer. (thanks Carly for tweeting that video)

• And the tweet of the week goes to...@madeinlowell

• Bugs behind the walls… Wallcology as a way to teach kids about ecology. 

• Blogging for Academics. A terrific Prezi by Jon Tennant.

• How science education changes your drawing style. Wow.

• Fighting cancer, back in time. A story of a 120,000 year old Neanderthal with evidence of bone cancer (Jacquelyn Gill altered me to that story)

• Making music to forge a community. A heartwarming and lovely story. Superb. (thanks Peggy Curran)

• Don’t try this at home: Do it yourself brain stimulator. Sigh. Just not cool.

• Twitter feeds for poetry buffs. (thanks to Adam Taylor for the link)

• Does the dog die? A critical question before watching a movie. Check here to find out.

• As spring in my part of the world makes way for summer, this means Asparagus season is ending. I do love eating Asparagus. I don’t, however, love the after-effects.

• To end with a little Woody Guthrie. A friend and colleague told me he cited the good Mr. Guthrie in a scientific paper! A+ for that! – click here and read the first paragraph.