Nick Sears demos the Orb

It's been hypothesized that orb weaving spiders, like this argiope here, should have the toughest dragline silks because they must intercept flying prey.

And He it is Who hath created the night and the day , and the sun and the moon , each in an orb floating .

And He it is Who hath created the night and the day , and the sun and the moon , each in an orb floating .

Inventor Nick Sears demos the first generation of the Orb, a rotating persistence of vision display that creates glowing 3D images. A short, cool tale of invention.

The 21 species are indicated here by this phylogeny, this evolutionary tree, that shows their genetic relationships, and I've colored in yellow the orb web weaving spiders.

So if you ever have the opportunity to dissect an orb web weaving spider, and I hope you do, what you would find is a bounty of beautiful, translucent silk glands.

In an orb web weaving spider, you can find seven types of silk glands, and what I have depicted here in this picture, let's start at the one o'clock position, there's tubuliform silk glands, which are used to make the outer silk of an egg sac.