A loose spider on a space station.
Technorati Tags: humor, 'snakes, on, a, plane', spider, spiders, 'space, station'
Apparently the missing orb-weaver spider is gone from it's cage and can't be found anywhere.
And for the record, I don't know what kind of spider is in my photograph. It's a spider that lives in Fairbanks, AK.
From the Telegraph:
It was hoped the missing spider might have sought refuge in its neighbour's tank, but the remaining spider has spun a web so thick, to cope with the zero-gravity conditions, that is is impossible to check.
The runaway spider, which was meant to be the back-up should the chief spider be incapacitated for any reason [emphasis mine], was reported AWOL after Endeavour's crew opened a cargo container of equipment including a new kitchen and toilet, additional living quarters for the station's staff and a $250 million machine that will allow future crews to recycle their urine for drinking water.
Maybe someone swallowed the spider to catch the fly? I don't know why they'd swallow a fly.
H/T Ed Yong (who has also published a wonderful new book BTW)
Hopefully they won't die.
I guess it's a good thing there aren't any horses on the space station. As you reminded me, we all know what happened when the old lady swallowed the horse. :-)
Here's an orb weaver story including a photo which wouldn't ease the astronauts' anxieties:
http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2008/10/23/11601_local-news.html
All I could think of after the horse comment was Catherine the Great.
Sorry.
...
$250 million to recycle urine..?!?
Wow.
...tom...
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