The Jumping Spider’s Blurry Vision

The jumping spider has a special vision system that enables it to calculate the precise distance it needs to jump. How does the spider do it?

Consider: To measure its distance from an object, the jumping spider exploits a unique feature of its two principal eyes, each of which has a “staircase” retina with multiple layers. While one layer receives green light in sharp focus, another receives it as a blurry image. The more out of focus an image appears in that layer, the closer the object is to the spider’s eye. This simple fact enables the spider to calculate the exact distance it has to jump to catch its prey.

Researchers would like to copy the jumping spider’s technique in order to create 3-D cameras and even robots that can measure the distance to an object. According to the online news site ScienceNOW, the jumping spider’s vision provides “an exciting example of how half-centimeter-long [0.2 in.] animals with brains smaller than those of house flies still manage to gather and act on complex visual information.”

There are truly many things we can learn from nature. Look around you, is nature not amazing?

The Lantern of the Photuris Firefly

THE lantern, or light organ, of a particular Photuris firefly is covered with jagged scales that dramatically enhance the brightness of the light that the insect produces. * Jagged scales Consider: Researchers have found that tiny scales on the lantern surface of some fireflies form a corrugated pattern, somewhat like overlapping shingles or tiles. The scales tilt up at one end by just 3 micrometers —less than one twentieth the thickness of a human hair. Yet this tiny tilt lets the lantern shine almost 50 percent more brightly than it would if the scales formed an even surface!

An Overview of Indonesia

Land Straddling the equator between Australia and continental Asia, Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago. Most of its more than 17,500 islands feature rugged mountains and dense tropical forests. With more than 100 active volcanoes, it is also the most active volcanic region on earth.

PORTRAITS FROM THE PASTIgnaz Semmelweis

IGNAZ SEMMELWEIS may not be a household name, yet his work has benefited most modern families. Born in Buda (now Budapest), Hungary, he received his medical degree at the University of Vienna in 1844. On taking up his post as assistant to a professor at the First Maternity Clinic of Vienna’s General Hospital in 1846, Semmelweis faced an appalling reality —more than 13 percent of the women giving birth there died from a disease called childbed fever. Various theories as to the cause of this disease had been proposed, yet no one had solved the mystery. All attempts to reduce the mortality rate proved futile. Troubled by the spectacle of numerous mothers suffering a slow, agonizing death, Semmelweis determined to find the cause of the disease and prevent it.

Rielyn Co

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