subject: spiders in space posted: Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:45:24 -0000
Sooo as part of an experiment NASA has sent two golden orb spiders to
the International Space Station, so that their ability to adapt to
weightlessness can be studied.
"Their first orbital webs were messy, disorganized affairs" according
to Reuters [1]. "The web was more or less three-dimensional and it
looked like it was all over the inside of the spider hab," said
astronaut Sandra Magnus [2]. Reuters continues, "but a week into
their flight, television images beamed back to Earth showed
surprising progress. 'We noticed the spider made a symmetrical
web,'" said commander Mike Fincke.
But Reuters omits the best bit of the story, which is that one of the
spiders has disappeared [3]. Yes, within a week not only did the
spiders learn to weave in zero gravity but one of them also succeeded
in escaping the confines of their "hab", and is now roaming free
somewhere inside the ISS. "We don't believe that it's escaped the
overall payload enclosure" said Kirk Shireman, NASA's deputy station
program manager [2].
And my point? Well, what a testament to the power and flexibility of
life. Despite being sent aloft in a scientific experiment, to an
unfamiliar, highly controlled environment, a creature with a brain
the size of a pinhead was able to adapt to and overcome obstacles
that weren't even part of the experiment.
If the goal of the experiment was to see how life adapts to change,
then it has been a resounding success. What it highlights is the
inevitability of the evolution of ecosystems; the way in which given
even the tiniest chance, life will try and explore that chance,
exploit the niche, and discover new realms.
The episode also highlights the futility of resisting these
processes. The rigid system that is NASA's ISS program has been
cracked by a spider. What hope lies therein for those who suspect we
are all, on some level, like that spider, thrown into a strange,
boxed world, yearning to be free.
search: