AUDIO: TALKING TO SPIDERS
Scientists at MIT have turned a spider web into music – a technique that could help us communicate with spiders, they say. Despite having eight eyes, spiders have poor eyesight. Spiders are able to feel the vibrations in their webs and can tell the difference between, say, wind and a trapped fly. Professor Markus Buehler, an MIT materials scientist and engineer, wanted to try and “read” these vibrations, so he assigned different frequencies of sound to strands of the web, creating “notes” to generate melodies. His goal is to learn how to communicate with spiders in their own language.
* Interesting. So, how long ago exactly did this guy crack?
* Trouble is, no matter what strands of the spider web he vibrates, all the spider hears is “I’m not a fly. I’m not a fly.”
* Once you get past the screaming and the smooshing, I’m sure spiders can be very interesting.
* You don’t want to get on Professor Buehler’s bad side. Trust me. It would be like the rat attack scene from “Willard”.
* (When you’re playing the audio clip below) Doesn’t this sound like the music they play in Space Mountain at Disneyland?
* A spider is hearing this music and going, “Hey, party at Professor Buehler’s house! Let’s all go!”
CLIP: If a spider web could be heard by humans, this is how it would sound.
