Spider 'is 20 million years old'

BBCNews ^ | 9/30/05 | BBCNEWS

[mlc9852]

Yes they are. Just because you believe them doesn't make them true. There is quite a bit of disagreement regarding dating.

[staytrue]

I'd rather have t-rex running around than this spider.

You can see t-rex, you can shoot t-rex. Dealing with a spider infestation could be very difficult.

Which is easier to exterminate, a dinosaur colony or roaches ?

[T. Buzzard Trueblood]

Yikes.

[Prime Choice]

Okay...got my dose of creepy-crawlies for the day!

Fortunately, I only have to deal with field spiders and the occasional wolf spider. When I first moved to California, I had to contend with a massive infestation of Black Widow spiders in the garage. That was incredibly unnerving for me at the time...

[mlc9852]

Well, we still have roaches but I haven't seen any dinosaurs in awhile.

[skinkinthegrass]

Looks like a "Modern-Day" Wolf Spider....Evolution @ work, nothing needs to be changed, if prefect...and lives, to pass on its DNA/genes :/

[Prime Choice]

I was under the impression carbon dating isn't reliable past 50,000 years or so.

That's why I said coupled with at what level in the strata the amber was discovered.

[mlc9852]

And how would they determine how old the strata was?

[bigmac0707]

As I understand it, C-14 half life is about 5,700 yrs. It seems that that would make it impossible to date something over 11,400 yrs old using this method.

I've no reason to doubt that it is 20 mil years old, give or take, but I'm not sure how they would have determined that number.

[skinkinthegrass]

Was it Helen Thomas' childhood pet?

LOL! ...What do you think it was running from? ...HELEN. :D

[GreenLanternCorps]

Peter Parker did well with a radioactive spider, didn't go so well for Gwen Stacy, however...


(darn, I'm old...)

[general_re]

We got those down in Texas - just don't stick your hands or feet into dark places or piles of litter, and you should be okay ;)

Anyway, this one appears to have an even closer living relative in South America, by the name of Misionella mendensis, but I can't find any pics at the moment.

[TexasGreg]

I'd rather have t-rex running around than this spider. You can see t-rex, you can shoot t-rex. Dealing with a spider infestation could be very difficult. Which is easier to exterminate, a dinosaur colony or roaches ?

Here's a better thought ... DON'T clone a T-rex or a Raptor. Only clone VEGAN dinosaurs, ok??? If some scientist things it would be great to clone a T-rex, show him the scene from Jurassic Park where the T-rex eats the lawyer sitting on the john. hehehe.

[NutCrackerBoy]

Spider blood has been found in amber and scientists hope to extract its DNA.

OJ says spider may prove to have been Nicole's real killer.

[bigmac0707]

LOL!

That is, as long as the 8 minature spider gloves fit.

[GreenFreeper]

ECO-PING

A little more science and evolution than ecological but thought it was interesting! He first saw the fossil during a visit to the Museo del Ambar Dominicano

Hmmm, they call that a fossil eh?

[Tenacious 1]

"It doesn't say which dating methods were used here, only that the date was determined by extracting blood-- and I'm not sure how one would date something based on organic materials. Unless the spider was radioactive of course. (In that case, the movie ends up really bad for the humans)"

The article failed to mention the "Born on date" found in the spider's wallet.

[Danae]

Dr Penney, of the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, said he had used the blood droplets to trace how, when and where the spider died.

Uh, that would be by getting stuck in tree sap which then hardened into Amber.

[DH]

...and even how fast it was moving.

Hey? (holding up my hand and waving)  I can answer that question and you don't even have to pay me a ridiculous amount of money to do so.

The spider was moving very Sloooooooooooooooowly with all of that sticky goo on him.  How's that...and it's free!

[MeanWestTexan]

The organic materials would contain C-14 (radioactive carbon, which decays at a set rate and, mildly more controversely, is believed to exist at a set baseline % of total carbon at a given time).

Assuming one does not eat after death, the shortfall of the baseline % tells you how old something organic was when it stopped eating (e.g., died).