Britons Fear Spiders More Than Terrorists

[-Cp]

Britons Fear Spiders More Than Terrorists

http://www.local6.com/news/3800509/detail.html

LOL!!


LONDON -- Spiders are more scary than terrorists -- at least according to a survey of a thousand Britons released Monday.

Household creepy crawlies frighten Britons more than terrorist attacks, or even death, the survey found.

Terrorism only came second on the list of respondents' top ten fears, according to the survey conducted by RSGB Omnibus for Universal Pictures UK Ltd. The survey was based on telephone interviews of 1,000 aged 16 to 55 across Britain on Sept. 22-26.

Another crawling phobia -- snakes -- was ranked third, followed by a fear of heights. Death came in a surprising fifth place as the nation's greatest fear.

"It's not surprising that terrorist attacks came only second to creepy crawlies," said psychologist Donna Dawson, hired by Universal Pictures to comment the survey. "This is because fear of small creatures that scuttle about on four or more legs is a much more ancient, primordial fear, going straight back to caveman days."

A visit to the dentist came in sixth place, followed by needles and injections, and fear of public speaking -- whether professionally or at family events. Fear of debt came in ninth position, beating concerns over flying.

Also listed, other fears such as criminality, failure, ghosts, or even the fear of the future, did not make the top ten list of things that frighten Britons most.

Aileen Coulson, a spokeswoman for Universal Pictures, which commissioned the survey to coincide with the DVD release of Van Helsing, a horror movie featuring Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale, said the findings would provide "some great ammunition for Halloween," adding a prank spider was sure to "put the 'willies' up a friend, colleague or family member."

 

[waltky]

Breakthrough in artificial spider anti-venom?...

Biting back: Taking the sting out of spider venom
2 August 2013 > Brown recluse spiders bite more than 7,000 people in Brazil every year causing serious skin lesions and even death. The anti-venom used as treatment comes at the expense of many animal lives. But could a breakthrough in synthetic spider venom lead to a more humane solution?

"The first time I was bitten, I nearly died," says Adelaide Fabienski Maia, a school assistant from Curitiba. "I put my shorts on in the morning and felt a bite but didn't realise what it was. It wasn't until the evening that my face started burning up. I looked at the bite area and it was red." Adelaide was soon rushed to hospital with the classic target-shaped lesion caused by the venom eating away at her skin. It was only thanks to a dose of anti-venom that she's still around to tell the tale.

But the anti-venom currently available comes with its own risks - mostly to the animals involved in the production process. Venom is milked from thousands of brown spiders before being injected into horses. This triggers an immune response that creates life-saving anti-venom for humans - while drastically reducing the horses' own lifespan. Now scientists in Brazil have come up with a synthetic venom alternative that could save many of those lives.

Not so incy-wincy

The Loxosceles family of venomous brown and recluse spiders is found in North and South America, Africa, Australia and some parts of Europe. At 6-20mm long, they are by no means the world's biggest spiders. Even their bite is almost painless. But their venom can cause large sores and lesions through dermo-necrosis - literally "death of the skin". It is the only family of spiders in the world to cause the skin to die in this way. Scientists have linked it to a rare enzyme in the venom called sphingomyelinase D, which damages and kills skin tissue. In a small percentage of cases where anti-venom is not administered quickly enough, people can die through organ failure. But many more deaths - of spiders and horses - are caused through the anti-venom production itself. "We milk the spiders once a month for three to four months," says Dr Samuel Guizze, a biologist at the Butantan Institute, Sao Paulo's pioneering centre for anti-venom production.

It involves one technician gingerly picking up a spider and electrocuting it while a second scientist rushes to draw the venom into a syringe. As only a tiny squirt of venom is surrendered each time, it means that tens of thousands of individuals must be bred for milking. "The amount of venom obtained per spider is very small," says Dr Guizze. "We then inject the venom into horses and after 40 days the horses are bled and the antibodies [anti-venom] separated from the blood." Unsurprisingly, being injected with brown spider venom has an effect on the horses' health over time. Their lifespan is reduced from around 20 years to just three or four. Sadly, the spiders fare even worse - dying after just three or four venom extractions.

Alternatives to animals