IS CHINESE WATER
TORTURE
EFFECTIVE?
Finding: BUSTED
Explanation: Ever hear of the saying "oil and water don't mix"? Smart cooks know that water
isn't the secret ingredient for extinguishing a grease fire on the stove. On the contrary, oil catches
fire at around 680 degrees Fahrenheit, and a splash of water in the pan can combine with it to
create a terrifyingly tall burst of flames — probably not what you had in mind for a show before
dinner.
But rest assured, you'd need more than the water in your ordinary drinking glass to bring the
myth of 30-foot kitchen pyrotechnics to life. MythBusters' Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage
found that a mere 8 ounces of water sloshed on 2 quarts of burning oil only causes a 20-foot tall
inferno, because the water vaporizes and expands almost instantaneously, carrying the flaming
oil particles with it.
To achieve 30-foot flames, they needed a 2:1 oil-to-water ratio: 2 quarts of oil and a full quart of
water. And only then: Voila, fireball!
As seen in "MythBusters: Greased Lightning."
CAN THROWING A
GLASS OF WATER
ON A GREASE FIRE
CREATE A HUGE
FIREBALL?
Finding: PLAUSIBLE
Explanation: The sound of a leaky faucet can drive some people crazy, but what about the
sensation of those droplets dripping repetitively on your skin? MythBusters Kari Byron and
Adam Savage suffered for science and underwent Chinese water torture to test its psychological
power. The well-known torture tactic involves subjecting victims to a continuous stream of
dripping water that strikes the same spot on their foreheads for a prolonged period of time.
The MythBusters racked and restrained Kari, then turned on a leaky faucet, while Adam endured
the drip sitting upright and unrestrained. Throughout the process, both took psychological
assessments to track their mental states.
After nearly two hours, Kari started to seriously crack and experienced claustrophobia and
shoulder spasms. Adam sat through more than three hours of water torture, and while he wasn't
as shaken as Kari, the procedure proved uncomfortable.
In fact, the preliminary torture trials rattled the MythBusters enough that they called the
experiment quits early. Even in a safe environment, the myth of Chinese water torture was
deemed too plausible to risk complete confirmation.
As seen in "MythBusters: Brown Note, Water Torture"
Epidemiologist
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/life-physical-and-social-science/epidemiologists.htm#tab-1
Epidemiologists investigate the causes of disease and other public health problems to prevent
them from spreading or from happening again. They report their findings to public policy
officials and to the general public.
Duties
Epidemiologists typically do the following:
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Plan and direct studies of public health problems to find ways to prevent and to treat the
problems
Collect and analyze data—including using observations, interviews, surveys, and samples
of blood or other bodily fluids—to find the causes of diseases or other health problems
Communicate their findings to health practitioners, policymakers, and the public
Manage public health programs by planning programs, monitoring progress, analyzing
data, and seeking ways to improve them, among other activities
Supervise professional, technical, and clerical personnel
Epidemiologists collect and analyze data to investigate health issues. For example, an
epidemiologist might collect and analyze demographic data to determine who is at the highest
risk for a particular disease.
Research epidemiologists typically work for universities. Applied epidemiologists work with
governments, addressing health crises directly. The most common problem both types of
epidemiologists work on is infectious diseases, but they examine other public health issues, as
well.
Epidemiologists who work in private industry commonly work for health insurance companies or
pharmaceutical companies. Those in non-profit companies often do public advocacy work.
According to a 2009 national survey by the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists,
local government epidemiologists study one or more of the following public health areas:

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

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

Infectious diseases
Bioterrorism/emergency response
Maternal and child health
Chronic diseases
Environmental health
Injury
Occupational health
Substance abuse
Oral health
Work Environment
Epidemiologists held about 5,000 jobs in 2010. They work in health departments, offices,
universities, laboratories, or in the field. They spend most of their time studying data and reports
in a safe lab or office setting. Epidemiologists have minimal risk when they work in laboratories
or in the field, because they take extensive precautions before interacting with samples or
patients.
In 2010, 54 percent of epidemiologists worked for federal, state, and local governments. Other
epidemiologists worked for pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturers (5%); scientific research
and development services (7%); college, universities, and professional schools (9%); and
hospitals in the state, local, and private sectors (13%).
Work Schedules
Most epidemiologists work full time and have a routine work schedule. Fieldwork or public
health emergencies occasionally may cause epidemiologists to work irregular hours.
How to Become an Epidemiologist
Epidemiologists need at least a master’s degree from an accredited postsecondary institution.
Most have a master’s degree in epidemiology or a related field. Some epidemiologists have a
Ph.D.
Education
Epidemiologists need at least a master’s degree from an accredited postsecondary institution.
Most have a master’s degree in public health, with an emphasis in epidemiology or a related
field. Advanced epidemiologists—including those in colleges and universities—have a Ph.D. in
their chosen field.
Coursework in epidemiology includes public health, biology, and biostatistics. Classes
emphasize statistical methods, causal analysis, and survey design. Advanced courses emphasize
multiple regression, medical informatics, review of previous biomedical research, and practical
applications of data.
A number of epidemiologists have a professional background (for example, a medical degree)
with a dual degree in epidemiology. In medical school, students spend most of the first 2 years in
laboratories and classrooms, taking courses such as anatomy, biochemistry, physiology,
pharmacology, psychology, microbiology, pathology, medical ethics, and laws governing
medicine. They also learn to take medical histories, examine patients, and diagnose illnesses.
Important Qualities
Communication skills. Epidemiologists must use their expertise and experience to determine
how they can disseminate their findings to the public properly.
Critical-thinking skills. Epidemiologists analyze their findings to determine how best to
respond to a public health problem or a more grave health-related emergency.
Detail oriented. Epidemiologists must be precise and accurate in moving from observation and
interview to conclusions.
Math and statistical skills. Epidemiologists work with both qualitative methods (observations
and interviews) and quantitative methods (surveys and analysis of biological data) in their work.
Speaking skills. Epidemiologists must communicate complex findings so that public policy
officials and the public can understand the magnitude of a health problem.
Writing skills. Written communication is critical for helping decision makers and the public
understand the conclusions and recommendations that epidemiologists make.
Pay
The median annual wage of epidemiologists was $63,010 in May 2010. The median wage is the
wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned
less. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $42,360, and the top 10 percent earned more than
$98,380.
Most epidemiologists work full time and have a routine work schedule. Fieldwork or public
health emergencies occasionally may cause epidemiologists to work irregular hours.
Job Outlook
Employment of epidemiologists is expected to increase by 24 percent from 2010 to 2020, faster
than the average for all occupations. Ongoing public health awareness, as well as an increased
reliance on medical records for public health analysis, will maintain demand for epidemiologists.
New legislation that will improve medical record-keeping is expected to create more
opportunities for epidemiologists to track infection and demographic data.
Employment growth over the next 10 years for epidemiologists is expected to be strong in state
and local governments. Governments have increased their demand for epidemiologists because
the analyses that epidemiologists do are important to preventive healthcare, as well as to
emergency responses.
Job Prospects
Epidemiologists generally should have favorable opportunities. Many states report
shortages of qualified workers for applied epidemiology positions.
Contacts for More Information
For more information about epidemiologists, including schools offering education in
epidemiology, visit
Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists
For more information about epidemiology careers in the federal government, visit
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
DNA Sequencing Helps
Identify Cancer Cells for
Immune System Attack
Feb. 8, 2012 — DNA sequences from tumor cells can be used to direct the immune system to
attack cancer, according to scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
The research, in mice, appears online Feb. 8 in Nature.
The immune system relies on an intricate network of alarm bells, targets and safety brakes to
determine when and what to attack. The new results suggest that scientists may now be able to
combine DNA sequencing data with their knowledge of the triggers and targets that set off
immune alarms to more precisely develop vaccines and other immunotherapies for cancer.
"We already have ways to identify specific targets for immunotherapy, but they are technically
challenging, extremely labor-intensive and often take more than a year to complete," says senior
author Robert Schreiber, PhD, the Alumni Professor of Pathology and Immunology at the School
of Medicine and co-leader of the tumor immunology program at the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer
Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine. "These
difficulties have stood in the way of developing personalized immunotherapies for cancer
patients, who often require immediate care for their disease. To our knowledge, this is one of the
first studies to show that the faster methods provided by DNA sequencing can help. That opens
up all kinds of exciting possibilities."
Scientists have long maintained that the immune system can recognize cancer as a threat either
on its own or with the help of vaccines or other immunotherapeutic treatments, which help alert
the immune system to the danger posed by cancers. Once the cancer is recognized, the immune
system should develop the capacity to attack growing cancer cells until either the tumor is
eradicated or the immune system's resources are exhausted.
Schreiber and his colleagues have shown that interactions between the immune system and
cancer are more complex. Their theory, called cancer immunoediting, suggests that some of the
mutations in tumor cells are very easy for the immune system to recognize as a threat. If the
immune system detects these mutations in cancer cells, it attacks until they are destroyed.
At that point, the cancer may be eliminated. But it's also possible that the cancer can be "edited"
by the immune system, resulting in the removal of all the cells containing the critical easily
recognized mutations. The remaining tumor cells can continue to grow or enter into a period of
dormancy where they are not destroyed but are held in check by the immune system.
For the new study, Schreiber and his colleagues wanted to define the genetics of tumors that had
yet to interact with the immune system. To do so, they induced tumors in mice with disabled
immune systems. They collaborated with Washington University's Genome Institute scientists,
who sequenced the cancer cells' genes.
"Until very recently, this work would have been impractical because of the costs involved,"
Schreiber says. "But the technology has improved and prices have come down, and now it's
possible to obtain this genetic information for a few thousand dollars instead of a million."
By comparing genetic data from cancer cells and normal cells, scientists identified 3,743
mutations in the genes of the tumor cells. Next, they turned to an online database of protein
sequences likely to be recognized by a key immune system sensor. This helped them narrow
their focus to a few mutated genes whose altered proteins seemed most likely to trigger immune
system attacks. One of these mutated proteins, an altered form of spectrin-beta2, was present in
all tumor cells that were attacked by the immune system and in none of the cells that were
ignored.
Researchers cloned this mutant gene and put it into other mouse tumor cells that lacked the
mutation. When transplanted into mice with normal immunity, the tumor cells that made the
mutant spectrin-beta 2 protein were attacked and eliminated by immune cells.
"Many of the cancer genome projects now under way are looking for the 'driver' mutations, or
the mutations that cause the cancers," Schreiber says. "Our results suggest there may be
additional information in the sequencing data that can help us make the immune system attack
cancers."
Schreiber calls the spectrin-beta2 mutation identified in the study "low-hanging fruit," noting
that it's such a red flag to the immune system that its presence normally leads the immune system
to assault cancer cells without any prompting from immunotherapy.
He and his colleagues are currently sequencing DNA in tumors grown from mice with normal
immune systems to see if they can identify mutations that are not as readily discernible to the
immune system.
"The idea would be to make a vaccine that helps the immune system recognize and attack six or
seven of these mutated proteins in a cancer," he says. "Therapeutically, that could be very
helpful."
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Washington University in St. Louis,
via Newswise. The original article was written by Michael C. Purdy.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the
source cited above.
Journal Reference:
1. Hirokazu Matsushita, Matthew D. Vesely, Daniel C. Koboldt, Charles G. Rickert, Ravindra
Uppaluri, Vincent J. Magrini, Cora D. Arthur, J. Michael White, Yee-Shiuan Chen, Lauren K.
Shea, Jasreet Hundal, Michael C. Wendl, Ryan Demeter, Todd Wylie, James P. Allison, Mark
J. Smyth, Lloyd J. Old, Elaine R. Mardis, Robert D. Schreiber. Cancer exome analysis
reveals a T-cell-dependent mechanism of cancer immunoediting. Nature, 2012; DOI:
10.1038/nature10755
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120208152342.htm
First Satellite Tag Study
for Manta Rays Reveals
Habits and Hidden
Journeys of Ocean Giants
May 11, 2012 — Using the latest satellite tracking technology, conservationists from the
Wildlife Conservation Society, the University of Exeter (UK), and the Government of Mexico
have completed a ground-breaking study on a mysterious ocean giant: the manta ray.
The research team has produced the first published study on the use of satellite telemetry to track
the open-ocean journeys of the world's largest ray, which can grow up to 25 feet in width.
Researchers say the manta ray -- listed as "Vulnerable" by the International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) -- has become increasingly threatened by fishing and accidental
capture and now needs more protection.
The study was published May 11 in the online journal PLoS ONE. The authors include: Rachel
T. Graham of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of Exeter; Matthew J. Witt of
the University of Exeter; Dan W. Castellanos of the Wildlife Conservation Society; Francisco
Remolina of the National Commission of Protected Areas, Cancun, Mexico; Sara Maxwell of the
Marine Conservation Institute and the University of California-Santa Cruz; Brenden J. Godley of
the University of Exeter; and Lucy A. Hawkes of Bangor University, Bangor, United Kingdom.
"Almost nothing is known about the movements and ecological needs of the manta ray, one of
the ocean's largest and least-known species," said Dr. Rachel Graham, lead author on the study
and director of WCS's Gulf and Caribbean Sharks and Rays Program. "Our real-time data
illuminate the previously unseen world of this mythic fish and will help to shape management
and conservation strategies for this species."
The research team attached satellite transmitters to manta rays off the coast of Mexico's Yucatan
Peninsula over a 13-day period. The tracking devices were attached to the backs of six
individuals -- four females, one male, and one juvenile.
"The satellite tag data revealed that some of the rays traveled more than 1,100 kilometers during
the study period," said Dr. Matthew Witt of the University of Exeter's Environment and
Sustainability Institute. "The rays spent most of their time traversing coastal areas plentiful in
zooplankton and fish eggs from spawning events."
Like baleen whales and whale sharks, manta rays are filter feeders that swim through clouds of
plankton with mouths agape.
The research team also found that the manta rays spent nearly all their time within Mexico's
territorial waters (within 200 miles of the coastline), but only 11.5 percent of the locations
gathered from the tagged rays occurred within marine protected areas. And the majority of ray
locations were recorded in major shipping routes in the region; manta rays could be vulnerable to
ship strikes.
"Studies such as this one are critical in developing effective management of manta rays, which
appear to be declining worldwide," said Dr. Howard Rosenbaum, Director of WCS's Ocean
Giant Program.
In spite of its malevolent, bat-like appearance, the manta ray -- sometimes referred to as the
"devilfish" -- is harmless to humans and lacks the stinger of the better-known stingray. The
manta ray possesses the highest brain to body ratio of all sharks and rays and gives birth to live
young, usually one or two "pups" every one or two years. Manta rays are apparently declining in
the Caribbean and in other tropical regions of the world's oceans, in part because they are
captured for shark bait and a demand for gill rakers (small, finger-like structures that filter out
the ray's minute zooplankton prey) in the traditional Chinese medicinal trade.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Wildlife Conservation Society.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the
source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Rachel T. Graham, Matthew J. Witt, Dan W. Castellanos, Francisco Remolina, Sara Maxwell,
Brendan J. Godley, Lucy A. Hawkes. Satellite Tracking of Manta Rays Highlights Challenges
to Their Conservation. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (5): e36834 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0036834
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120511122228.htm
Researchers from the Wildlife
Conservation Society, the
University of Exeter, and the
Government of Mexico have
published the first-ever satellite
telemetry study on the manta ray,
the world’s largest ray species. The
findings will help inform ecosystembased management plans for the
rays, which are in decline
worldwide due to fishing and
accidental capture. (Credit: Photo
credit: Kaile Tsapis)
Boiling Water Without
Bubbles: Researchers
Engineer Special Surface,
Allowing Water to Boil
Without Producing
Bubbles
ScienceDaily (Sep. 13, 2012) — Every cook knows that boiling water bubbles, right? New
research from Northwestern University turns that notion on its head.
"We manipulated what has been known for a long, long time by using the right kind of texture
and chemistry to prevent bubbling during boiling," said Neelesh A. Patankar, professor of
mechanical engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied
Science and co-author of the study.
This discovery could help reduce damage to surfaces, prevent bubbling explosions and may
someday be used to enhance heat transfer equipment, reduce drag on ships and lead to anti-frost
technologies.
Published Sept. 13 in the journal Nature, the research outlines how a specially engineered coated
surface can create a stable vapor cushion between the surface and a hot liquid and eliminate the
bubbles that are created during boiling.
This phenomenon is based on the Leidenfrost effect. In 1756 the German scientist Johann
Leidenfrost observed that water drops skittered on a sufficiently hot skillet, bouncing across the
surface of the skillet on a vapor cushion or film of steam. The vapor film collapses as the surface
falls below the Leidenfrost temperature. When the water droplet hits the surface of the skillet, at
100 degrees Celsius, boiling temperature, it bubbles.
To stabilize a Leidenfrost vapor film and prevent bubbling during boiling, Patankar collaborated
with Ivan U. Vakarelski of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia.
Vakarelski led the experiments and Patankar provided the theory. The collaboration also
included Derek Chan, professor of mathematics and statistics from the University of Melbourne
in Australia.
In their experiments, the stabilization of the Leidenfrost vapor film was achieved by making the
surface of tiny steel spheres very water-repellant. The spheres were sprayed with a commercially
available hydrophobic coating -- essentially self-assembled nanoparticles -- combined with other
water-hating chemicals to achieve the right amount of roughness and water repellency. At the
correct length scale this coating created a surface texture full of tiny peaks and valleys.
When the steel spheres were heated to 400 degrees Celsius and dropped into room temperature
water, water vapors formed in the valleys of the textured surface, creating a stable Leidenfrost
vapor film that did not collapse once the spheres cooled to the temperature of boiling water. In
the experiments, researchers completely avoided the bubbly phase of boiling.
To contrast, the team also coated tiny steel spheres with a water-loving coating, heated the
objects to 700 degrees Celsius, dropped them into room temperature water and observed that the
Leidenfrost vapor collapsed with a vigorous release of bubbles.
"This is a dramatic result and there are many applications in which a vapor-loving, water-hating
surface is beneficial," Patankar said.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Northwestern University. The original
article was written by Erin White.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the
source cited above.
Journal Reference:
1. Ivan U. Vakarelski, Neelesh A. Patankar, Jeremy O. Marston, Derek Y. C. Chan, Sigurdur T.
Thoroddsen. Stabilization of Leidenfrost vapour layer by textured superhydrophobic
surfaces. Nature, 2012; 489 (7415): 274 DOI: 10.1038/nature11418
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120913132917.htm
Screenshot from a movie showing the cooling of 20
mm hydrophilic (left) and superhydrophobic (right)
steel spheres in 100 C water. The spheres' initial
temperature is about 380 C. The bubbling phase of
boiling is completely eliminated for steel spheres with
superhydrophobic coating. (Credit: Image courtesy of
Northwestern University)
Virgin Births May Be
Common in the Wild
By: Charles Choi, LiveScience Contributor
9/11/2012 - Wild female pit vipers can reproduce without a male, suggesting virgin births may
take place in nature far more than before thought. Asexual reproduction is common among
invertebrates — that is, animals without backbones. It occurs rarely in vertebrates, but examples
of it are increasingly being discovered. For instance, the Komodo dragon, the world's largest
living lizard, has given birth via parthenogenesis, in which an unfertilized egg develops to
maturity. Such virgin births have also been seen in sharks at least twice; in birds such as chickens
and turkeys; and in snakes such as pit vipers and boa constrictors.
Although virgin birth has been observed in vertebrates in captivity, scientists had not yet seen it
happen in the wild. This raised the possibility that such asexual reproduction might just be a rare
curiosity outside the mainstream of vertebrate evolution. "Until this discovery, facultative
parthenogenesis — asexual reproduction by a normally sexual species — has been considered a
captive syndrome," said researcher Warren Booth, a molecular ecologist at the University of
Tulsa in Oklahoma. Now, genetic analysis reveals examples of virgin birth in two closely
related species of pit viper snakes — the copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix) and cottonmouth
(Agkistrodon piscivorus).
Mama's offspring
The researchers collected genetic samples from long-term studies of the snakes — copperheads
from Connecticut and cottonmouths from Georgia. They gathered specimens from 22 litters of
copperheads and 37 litters of cottonmouths, both the mothers and their offspring. DNA analysis
confirmed that in one litter from each species, the offspring were solely the product of the
mother, with no genetic contributions from a father.
The researchers were able to analyze the large amount of data due to collaborations with Charles
Smith and Pam Eskridge of the Copperhead Institute and Wofford College, S.C., and Shannon
Hoss, a graduate student at San Diego State University. "We just sat there stunned at the
discovery," Booth told LiveScience. "This is something that we always believed existed, but in
order to investigate it, it would take a massive amount of work in the field. … To detect it in both
species in our first attempt was astounding."
"I think the frequency is what really shocked us," Booth added. "In the copperhead population,
we detected one instance in 22 litters, whereas in the cottonmouths, it was one in 37 litters.
Essentially, somewhere between 2.5 and 5 percent of litters produced in these populations may
be resulting from parthenogenesis. That's quite remarkable for something that has been
considered an evolutionary novelty, even by me up until this finding."
Pit vipers and many other creatures carry out meiosis, in which cells divide to form sex cells,
each of which only possess half the material needed to make offspring. In the female pit vipers,
pairs of their sex cells likely fused to generate embryos. The results were progeny that included
only the mother's genetic material. However, these offspring weren't clones of the mother since
they were not made using identical halves of her genome.
What limits virgin births?
How prevalent, then, is virgin birth? And could it possibly extend to humans? "In terms of other
species, it is evident now that reptiles are a group that appear predisposed to parthenogenesis,
whether facultative, as we address here, or obligate, where the primary reproductive mode is
parthenogenesis and few or no males are known within the species," Booth said. Obligate
parthenogenesis may have arisen from ancestral interbreeding between species, though scientists
aren't sure why some animals seem to randomly give birth without help from the male (the
facultative type).
"What is common to those that reproduce facultatively is the lack of genomic imprinting — by
that, I mean a process in which a specific set of genes are provided by the mother, and a second
set from the father," Booth said. "These genes of different parental origin must interact in a
process called genomic imprinting in order for the development of an embryo. This, as far as we
are aware, occurs in all mammals with the exception of the monotremes — platypus and
echidnas — and therefore explains why we cannot have facultative parthenogenesis in
mammalian species without significant intervention by scientists.
Originally, Booth and his colleagues thought such virgin births might happen if potential mates
were not present, but over the years, they have seen six captive female boa constrictors give birth
via parthenogenesis even when males were around during their breeding cycles. The number of
times virgin births have occurred with different females also seem to rule out a freak accident
causing it to occur, Booth and colleagues said. They are now investigating other possible causes
for these virgin births — "these include genetics, viruses, tumors and bacteria," Booth said.
In the future, the researchers also hope to investigate other species for virgin births, such as water
snakes in Oklahoma. In addition, they plan to see how well the offspring of virgin births survive
and reproduce. It may be that virgin mothers can establish whole area populations of snakes by
themselves. "We will know if this is possible in the next two to three years," Booth said.
The scientists detail their findings online Sept. 12 in the journal Biology Letters.
http://www.livescience.com/23103-virgin-births-common-wild-snakes.html
A female copperhead snake (Agkistrodon contortrix)
and her offspring born via parthenogenesis, also called
virgin birth, described in a study reported Sept. 12,
2012 in the journal Biology Letters.
CREDIT: © Charles Smith & Pam Eskridge
A new approach to cancer therapy uses antibodies that have been specially
made to recognize specific cancers. When coupled with natural toxins,
drugs, or radioactive substances, the antibodies seek out their target cancer
cells and deliver their lethal load. Alternatively, toxins can be linked to a
lymphokine and routed to cells equipped with receptors for the lymphokine.
http://www.web-books.com/eLibrary/ON/B0/B8/33MB8.html
Photo Gallery:
Spiders
http://www.livescience.com/21786-spider-diversity-gallery.html
Trapdoor Spider
Credit: © AMNH\R. Mickens
A trapdoor spider, Liphistius dangrek.
These spiders spend most of their time in
underground burrows, emerging mainly to
grab prey. Their rear half is segmented, a
trait visible in some of the earliest spider
fossils.
Western Black Widow
Credit: © AMNH\R. Mickens
A western black widow, Latrodectus
Hesperus. One of the few species
harmful to people in North America, a
black widow often features a red
hourglass shape on its underside.
Brown Recluse
Credit: © AMNH\R. Mickens
A brown recluse, Loxosceles
reclusa. This spider is
identified by a dark, violinshaped mark on its head. Its
venom can cause a deep
wound in humans that takes
weeks or even months to heal
and can produce symptoms
such as nausea and a fever.
Gooty Sapphire
Ornamental Spider
Credit: © AMNH\R. Mickens
A gooty sapphire ornamental
spider, Poecilotheria metallica,
shown from above.
Golden Orb-Web Spider
Credit: © AMNH\R. Mickens
A golden orb-web spider, Nephila
pilipes. Found throughout parts of Asia,
this large spider has yellow on its
abdomen and spins a golden web.
Orb Weaver Spider
Credit: © AMNH\R. Mickens
An orb weaver Argiope sp. Members of this
genus are found all around the world and spin
large webs that often contain striking designs.
Charlotte’s Web author E.B. White, who
consulted with an American Museum of
Natural History curator while writing the
classic children’s book, named the main
character Charlotte A. Cavatica after a
common orb weaver, Araneus cavaticus.
Funnel-Web Wolf Spider
Credit: © AMNH\R. Mickens
A funnel-web wolf spider, Sosippus
californicus. This spider spins a sheetlike web attached to a narrow tube, or
funnel. Sitting at the mouth of the tube,
the spider waits to strike after feeling
vibrations of prey crossing the web.
Southern House Spider
Credit: © AMNH\R. Mickens
A southern house spider, Kukulcania
hibernalis. The large charcoalcolored females make flat, tangled
webs in dark corners and under
overhangs and shutters to catch
insects.
Goblin Spider Claw
Credit: © AMNH\N. Duperre
Nadine Dupérré, a scientific assistant in the
American Museum of Natural History’s Division of
Invertebrate Zoology, uses a scanning electron
microscope to view goblin spiders in minute detail.
This detailed study allowed Museum Curator
Emeritus Norman Platnick and Dupérré to define
two new genera, or groups, of spiders: Niarchos and
Scaphios.
Indian Ornamental Spider
Credit: © AMNH\R. Mickens
An Indian ornamental tarantuala,
Poecilotheria regalis.
http://hawaii.gov/health/healthy-lifestyles/std-aids/data-statistics/2010.pdf