Starship Asterisk*

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/09/ancient-spider-fossil-100-million-amber-spider-attack_n_1949261.html wrote:

[b][color=#0000FF]Credit: Flickr/Oregon State University[/color][/b]

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Ancient Spider Attack Fossil Found:
100-Million-Year-Old Amber Is First Of Its Kind
Huffingtonpost, 10/09/2012

<<If you've always wondered what a 100-million-year-old spider attack might look like, today is your lucky day. According to a newly published paper, researchers at Oregon State University have found the "only fossil ever discovered of a spider attack on prey caught in its web." The amber-encased spider is poised to devour a tiny parasitic wasp.

“This was a male wasp that suddenly found itself trapped in a spider web,” George Poinar Jr., a professor emeritus of zoology at the university, said in a written statement. “This was the wasp’s worst nightmare, and it never ended. The wasp was watching the spider just as it was about to be attacked, when tree resin flowed over and captured both of them.”

Researchers say both the spider and the wasp belong to extinct genera. They added that the "extraordinarily rare" find may provide invaluable insight into the behavior of ancient spiders.

Oregon State University's website writes: The...fossils are in a piece of amber that preserved this event in remarkable detail, an action that took place in the Hukawng Valley of Myanmar in the Early Cretaceous between 97-110 million years ago, almost certainly with dinosaurs wandering nearby.

Aside from showing the first and only fossil evidence of a spider attacking prey in its web, the piece of amber also contains the body of a male spider in the same web. This provides the oldest evidence of social behavior in spiders, which still exists in some species but is fairly rare. Most spiders have solitary, often cannibalistic lives, and males will not hesitate to attack immature species in the same web.

Poinar and Ron Buckley, an amber collector from Kentucky, have described the find in a paper published in the most recent issue of the journal Historical Biology. They wrote that while there are other examples of amber-trapped insects caught in spider webs, "this is the first fossil evidence of spider sociality and a fossil spider attacking prey trapped in its web."

This is not the first time in recent weeks that remarkable creepy crawlies have been found fossilized in amber. In August, the Associated Press reported that scientists found three well-preserved, amber-encased ancient insects in Italy. The insects were said to be about 230 million years old -- about "100 million years older than what had been the previously known oldest critters trapped in fossilized tree resin."

The AP wrote: While older insects have been found in rock fossils, these are different because they are not compressed and better preserved, said study lead author David Grimaldi, curator of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. And you can see more detail, he said. "That's the great thing about amber. You can make this incredible detailed comparison with living species." Grimaldi said.

geckzilla wrote:
How neat! The sun is like the ocean.
So close yet so much to discover about it.

Side by side difference between SDO and IRIS imagery:

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That owlice gets around

geckzilla wrote:That's a jumping spider.

geckzilla wrote:

• That's a jumping spider.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetradrachm wrote:

<<The tetradrachm (τετράδραχμον) was an Ancient Greek silver coin equivalent to four drachmae. It was in wide circulation from 510 to 38 BC. The popular coin was widely used in transactions throughout the ancient Grecian world, including in cities politically unfriendly to Athens. The Athenian tetradrachm was stamped with the head of Athena on the obverse, and on the reverse the image of the owl of Athena, the iconographic symbol of the Athenian polis, with a sprig of olive and a crescent for the moon. The design was kept essentially unchanged for over two centuries. The tetradrachm's use as currency spread with the armies of Alexander the Great to the Greek-influenced areas of present-day Iran and India.>>

neufer wrote:but then that would be ridiculous!

makc wrote:What's funny is how those mason guys did not find it all ridiculous. I mean those were supposed to be intelligent people, how could they buy into that kind of stuff? And it is said, masons still exist today. Unless all they do now is play golf together, I would be worried about these people sanity.

neufer wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_%281982_film%29 wrote:
<<The Thing is a 1982 American science fiction horror film directed by John Carpenter. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a parasitic extraterrestrial lifeform that assimilates other organisms and in turn imitates them. The Thing infiltrates an Antarctic research station, taking the appearance of the researchers that it absorbs, and paranoia occurs within the group.

Plot: A Norwegian helicopter pursues an Alaskan malamute to an American Antarctic research station. As the Americans run out, one Norwegian drops a thermite charge aimed at the dog, destroying the helicopter and pilot. A rifleman keeps firing at the dog until he is killed by Lt. Garry, the station commander. The team decides to send helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady and Dr. Copper to the Norwegian camp for answers, but find only a burned ruin, with the body of a man who committed suicide and a large block of ice with a hollowed cavity. Outside they discover the burned remains of a humanoid corpse with two faces. Clark kennels the Malamute with the station's sled dogs where it begins to metamorphose and attacks them. MacReady pulls the fire alarm when he hears the commotion, and calls for a flamethrower. Childs incinerates the creature, and Blair does another autopsy, which leads him to believe the creature is capable of perfectly imitating other life forms. The Norwegians' records lead the team to a crater containing a flying saucer and a hole left by the block of ice they suspect the creature came from. Blair becomes suspicious of the others and withdraws, calculating that if the alien escapes to a civilized area, all life on Earth will be assimilated in a few years. Fuchs secretly tells MacReady that he is worried about Blair, and that according to Blair's journal, the creature's "dead" remains are still active on a cellular level. They warn everyone not to share food or drink, and to avoid being alone with the creature.>>

Beyond wrote:
But didn't the 'creature' eventually escape to the old west and become the good Marshall of Dodge city, and live on and on in re-runs?

• _The Thing from Another World_ (1951)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_from_Another_World wrote:
<<The Thing from Another World (often referred to as The Thing before its 1982 remake), is a 1951 science fiction film based on the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell (under the pseudonym of Don A. Stuart). The story concerns an Air Force crew and scientists at a remote Arctic research outpost forced to defend themselves from a malevolent, plant-based humanoid alien.

James Arness played the Thing, but he is difficult to recognize in costume and makeup, due to both low lighting and other effects used to obscure his features. The thing is attacked by sled dogs and the scientists recover a severed arm. As the arm warms up, it ingests some of the dogs' blood covering it, and the hand begins moving. Seed pods are quickly discovered in the palm, demonstrating that the alien is a form of plant life. Carrington is convinced that it can be reasoned with and has much to teach them, but Dr. Chapman and the others disagree; the Air Force personnel believe the creature may be dangerous.

The film was partly shot in Glacier National Park and interior sets built at a Los Angeles ice storage plant. In 2001, the film was deemed to be a "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant motion picture by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.>>

Beyond wrote: didn't confuse it with the Triffid nebula.