The web of the black widow is apparently a random spatial arrangement of threads, whichprovides its occupant with housing, means to capture prey and protection. However toensure that these functions are fulfilled, the spider has evolved to adapt the architecture ofthe web so that it would be able to adequately respond to the outer environment and toproperly transmit the stresses...

This report presents a case of a ten-years-old girl, who suffered myocardial ischemia following by “black widow” spider bite. A few minutes after the bite, her parents saw a small, black and shiny lesion in insect bite. The clinical signs began about 3-4 hours after the bite. The venom of the Latrodectus mactans “black widow” is toxic, resulting about 5-6 % fatality rate. The case of a black wi...

Noninvasive genetic sampling enables biomonitoring without the need to directly observe or disturb target organisms. This paper describes a novel and promising source of noninvasive spider and insect DNA from spider webs. Using black widow spiders (Latrodectus spp.) fed with house crickets (Acheta domesticus), we successfully extracted, amplified, and sequenced mitochondrial DNA from spider web...

15 Noninvasive genetic approaches enable biomonitoring without the need to directly observe or 16 disturb target organisms. Environmental DNA (eDNA) methods have recently extended this 17 approach by assaying genetic material within bulk environmental samples without a priori 18 knowledge about the presence of target biological material. This paper describes a novel and 19 promising source of n...

We present the material analysis of scaffolding silk from the cobweb of the black widow spider Latrodectus hesperus. 30 strands were tested from the webs of nine spiders. Strands were stretched at 0.211 mm/s as force and extension were recorded. Cross-sectional area was measured under 1000 x oil-immersion light microscopy. The stress strain curve shows that cobweb silk is a distinct material fr...

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder with impairments across the lifespan. The persistence of ADHD is associated with considerable liability to neuropsychiatric co-morbidity such as depression, anxiety and substance use disorder. The substantial heritability of ADHD is well documented and recent genome-wide analyses for risk genes revealed syna...

Despite significant advancements in Internet of Things (IoT)-based smart cities, service discovery and composition continue to pose challenges. Current methodologies face limitations optimizing Quality Service (QoS) diverse network conditions, thus creating a critical research gap. This study presents an original innovative solution this issue by introducing novel three-layered Recurrent Neural...

The aqueous extract of the venom glands of black widow spiders was fractionated on a column of Sephadex G-200 and then on a column of DEAE-Sephadex A-50 pH 8.2. A protein fraction was obtained that caused a great increase in the frequency of occurrence of miniature end plate potentials at the frog neuromuscular junction, and caused swelling of the nerve terminals and depleted them of their vesi...

In 1987, the hobo spider, Tegenaria agrestis, was initially implicated in necrotic lesions in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. This European-origin species has since joined the widow and recluse spiders to become the well-known trio of medically significant spiders in North America. It is currently distributed from British Columbia to Oregon and east to Montana and Colorado, with eas...