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Spider Man Meets
Spider-Man -

An interview with arachnologist Norman Platnick. Learn about the animal that has become famous through his Marvel Comics and movie action hero.

Podcast content summary and time log for Volume 31 of Ask-a-Biologist.

Real life Spider Man Norman Platnick poses with a larger than life Spider-Man 3 movie poster.


Keywords and topics that are found in this program: SOLS, spider silk, webs, species, venom, movie, natural history museum, arachnologist, arachnology.

Topic Time
Intro 00:00
How did you get interested in spiders? 01:17
How many species of spiders are in the world? 01:58
How many spiders species are left to be discovered? 02:08
The number of spiders you have discovered. 02:23
How many spiders are dangerous to humans? 03:19
How many species of spiders in the U.S. that are dangerous to humans? 04:29
Black widow bytes misdiagnosed as an appendicitis. 05:03
Brown recluse spider 05:22
So spiders are not that dangerous for humans and are critical to the planet. 06:08
What if there were no spiders on Earth? 06:47
Why do you think people are afraid of spiders? 08:22
What are some of the best things about spiders - what are some of your favorite spiders? 09:20
What are some of the coolest characteristics of spiders - silk - types - strength. 10:43
SPIDA-web - artificial neural network 12:18
SPIDA-web learns? 13:44
Can anyone use SPIDA-web? 14:22
How was SPIDA-web funded and how much did it cost? 16:10
Other spider resources on the web. 17:30
What's it like to work in a natural history museum - American Museum of Natural History? 17:58
Spiderman meets Spiderman - is Tobey Maguire afraid of spiders? 19:12
What's an average day like for you? 19:52
Travel as part of your job. 21:26
Do you have any interesting travel adventure stories? 21:49
Launch of the new International Institute for Species Exploration - what do you hope the IISE will do? 22:26
When did you know you wanted to be a biologist - scientist? 24:36
What would you be if you were not a biologist? 25:44
The importance of artists in science. 26:40
What advice do you have for someone wanting to become a biologist? 27:33
Sign-off 28:10

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