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TUNING THE WEB. "Spiders can change the vibrational frequency of individual silk threads -- they actually tune and pluck the webs." A very nice pictorial summary. https://lnkd.in/dqJTWXQ View in LinkedIn

NO MODEL. "Despite the great success and undeniable brilliance of the biologic approach to spider dragline, it is fair to say that no mathematical model for spider dragline exists in open literature." https://lnkd.in/djskEtZ View in LinkedIn

WEB EVOLUTION. "The orb is certainly not the final apex of web design. Our analyses also demonstrate subsequent rampant transformation of the orb into other architectures, suggesting that the origin of stereotypical orb webs provides a critical gateway for the evolution of novel web types and the diversification associated with them." http://www.pnas.org/content/106/13/5229.full View in LinkedIn

LET THEORY GUIDE OBSERVATIONS. “How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!” Let theory guide your observations.” Indeed, Darwin had no use for the empiricist claim that a scientist should not have a preconception or hypothesis that would guide his work. Otherwise, as he wrote, one “might as well go into a gravel pit and count the pebbles and describe the colors." https://lnkd.in/d4g4UsJ View in LinkedIn

TIME LAPSE of spider building a web. https://lnkd.in/dB6TZ_2 View in LinkedIn

WEB ECONOMICS. "The web geometry of different spider species is always similar in spite of the myriad of possible solutions, this means that the evolution has led to a single optimal solution: an overall planar structure able to provide food at the minimum cost for the spider." https://lnkd.in/dzdDcHk View in LinkedIn

TIME LAPSE of spider building a web. https://lnkd.in/dB6TZ_2 View in LinkedIn

INTRONS REFRESH. "By permitting the reassortment of exonic information, they facilitate both the production of multiple and possibly differently functional proteins from a single gene (“alternative splicing”) and the evolution of novel genes by recombination of exons from different genes (“exon shuffling”)." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

INTRONS AND THE KEY TO EVOLUTION. "Spliceosomal introns might well be one of the genomic feature that eukaryotes must put up with because of small population sizes. When these genic interruptions (found in all eukaryotes but, as yet, not in prokaryotes) were first discovered, Gilbert ventured that their presence held the key to the enhanced evolutionary potential of eukaryotes." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

THE SCENARIO, UNFOLDED. "Once on the scene, eukaryotes are imagined to have radically altered evolution’s tempo and mode. With cells structurally more complex—but at the same time, more self-similar at the cellular level—than their prokaryotic ancestors, eukaryotes radiated into a great diversity of organismal types, including complex multicellular forms with the transcendent potential to “bear embryos, respond to music, and reflect on their own nature” http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn