I'm Spider-Woman

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I'm Spider-Woman

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I'm an arachnologist - someone who studies the science of spiders. I think spiders get a bad rep, so the movie Spider-Man is a bit of much-needed positive spider-PR. Your backyard is full of spiders, and they play a very important ecological role. The public's dislike of them is unwarranted and unfortunate. If you start to appreciate how cool and diverse they are, spiders can be endlessly entertaining. Not convinced? Read on...

I’m a Professor at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. I study spiders and am mostly inspired by understanding how biological diversity comes about through evolution. When it comes to spiders, I specifically focus on the venom. Every individual species has a cocktail of chemicals in its venom, and the composition of that is different across different species. A number of things influence patterns of diversity in venom chemistry, such as prey capture (what they’re eating), who they’re closely related to and what they’ve been historically stuck with, before evolution changes and modifies that. Now back to Spider-Man...

Read the whole article here:  http://www.orato.com/node/2429