Animals

Oh, What A Tangled Web We Weave, When First We Practice — On Acid!

By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

NASA researchers wondered what would happen to spiders if treated to a variety of mind altering substances. The drugs chosen were LSD, Speed, Marijuana, and Caffeine. To test their faculties the researchers administered the drugs then let spiders be spiders and build their webs. Here are the results:

There was some overlap in arachnid versus human performance. “According to the researchers, the spider that was high on marijuana did a fair job weaving, but then got bored or distracted and didn’t finish. The one on speed went really fast, but without much awareness of the overall picture: It left large gaps. The acid-tripping spider wove a psychedelic, symmetrical web that was very pretty but not great at catching bugs.”

Makes you wonder about that second cup of coffee this morning.

Source: NASA via Life’s Little Mysteries

~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

41 thoughts on “Oh, What A Tangled Web We Weave, When First We Practice — On Acid!”

  1. Bdaman-

    I’m surprised your film didn’t show any spider hockey, eh? What was the effect of back bacon and Molson’s on web construction?

  3. The CIA had an extensive research project in America on unwitting, unconsenting, unable to consent, human subjects who were mental patients locked up in varous mental hospitals in America. The MKULTRA Project. They gave various amounts of LSD to patients and studied their behavior. They did not have a follow up project to determine what harm they did and nor did the mental hospitals who illegally participated. This dog, in a prior life as an attorney personally represented a man who discovered the evidence of the project in a trash dumpster at a state mental hospital. His interest was aroused when a lab coated doctor was nervously dumping boxes in the dumpster while looking over both shoulders. The patient was punished and locked up as dangerous for unrelated activity (he had been an outpatient). The documents were stolen by the CIA from this lawyer at a later date. Google MKULTRA. I recall that Allen Dulles was the Director at the date of inception. Your government fried a lot of fragile minds. Be proud to be an American. It is not odd that not one commenter knew of this besides Anon Nurse above. The media is snuffed on the subject.

  4. Puzzling: “Didn’t the CIA already complete this “study” at the human level?”

    ———–
    If the CIA didn’t the Army did.

    I wonder if NASA was playing drug appropriate music for the spiders and if/how that would have affected the web? The pot-dosed spider probably wouldn’t have finished nearly as much of the web as it did 🙂

  7. anon nurse
    1, March 25, 2012 at 10:15 am
    Didn’t the CIA already complete this “study” at the human level? -puzzling
    😉 (Still workin’ on it, I believe)

    ======================================

    Truth

  10. Didn’t the CIA already complete this “study” at the human level? -puzzling

    😉 (Still workin’ on it, I believe)

  12. Eniobob,

    Timothy Learys…… Private stock…..1964 before the south Peruvian monsoon……

  13. Nal:

    I got the same vibe only my question is” WHAT BRAND” is that??????? :=)

  14. Now I know….. But did I need to is the question…… Beware this explains a lot…..

  15. And why does NASA need to know this?

    This looks like basic science fair material to me. Of course, any private citizens who attempted such research would be charged with possession of illegal drugs and jailed.

    Why were opiates excluded? Barbituates? MDMA? Maybe those are funded for next year.

    Didn’t the CIA already complete this “study” at the human level?

  17. How did they determine the proper dose?

    Interesting that caffeine, the least mind-altering in humans (I’m guessing), had the most significant effect in spider web design.

  20. I have nescafé expresso (big cup), strong, sugar and milk, when I eat bacon and eggs and walnut bread with butter/canola spread.
    The food keeps me grounded, and the coffee is almost as good as a piece of dark chocolate. That’s living.

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