Put simply, arachnids are amazing. For example, there are over 2,000 species of scorpions on Earth, and all of these species fluoresce under ultraviolet light (Why? Who knows?!?). Meanwhile, Harvestmen, also known as daddy long-legs, have scarcely changed at all during 305 million years of evolution, and they can detach their own legs to distract would-be predators. And besides being the primary vector for Lyme disease transmission to humans, black-legged ticks can live up to two years and eat just three times during their entire life cycle.

But perhaps the most amazing arachnids of all are spiders, who have managed to delegate the production of one of the strongest materials known to man, silk, to goats!

More precisely, these days, there are genetically modified goats that produce milk with spider silk in it. Spider silk is part of a class of materials known as biopolymers, which are protein-based materials of biological origin. Spider silk has attracted widespread interest from engineers in recent years, largely because of its impressive mechanical properties — stronger than steel yet thinner than a human hair. It’s not a new material, though. Fossil records indicate that spider silk has a history on Earth dating back to the Middle Devonion Period over 350 million years ago!

To be completely correct, psychological research suggests that couples who play together feel closer, experience more positive emotions, and as a result are happier together, but that doesn’t have the same ring does it?

If boredom, is the silent relationship killer, novel and arousing activities seem to be the powerful anecdote. Art Aron and colleagues have found that couples who engage in more novel and arousing activities together are happier in their relationships. And these results aren’t just correlational – Aron actually had couples come into the lab and engage in exciting or mundane tasks. Couples in the exciting condition got strapped together with Velcro and had to crawl their way through an obstacle course while holding a pillow between them. The explanation of the mundane activity might put you to sleep. Couples who got to take part in the Velcro obstacle course reported feeling happier in their relationships than couples who took part in the mundane activity or no activity at all. Why does participation in a novel and arousing obstacle course lead to a happier relationship? 

Participating in novel and arousing activities keeps us from getting bored, and boredom is a relationship killer.

Please join us for an exciting Q&A discussion with Sabin Russell, staff writer/editor at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and former medical science writer at the San Francisco Chronicle.  

RSVP
What: The Berkeley Science Review - Science Writing Seminar
Who: Sabin Russel
When: 6:00PM – Tuesday, January 24th
Where: 100 Boalt School of Law
Why: Come chat with one of the most experienced science writers in the industry!