A small robotics company called Robugtix is about to give everyone something special whether they want it or not…arachnophobia.

One of the company’s newest bots is named, simply and innocently, the T8. All of that simpleness and innocence evaporates quickly when you actually get to see the T8 in action.

3D-printed and housing 26 motors to move its creepy little self around, the T8 doesn’t just have the fact that it’s made to look like a spider going against it. When you see the T8’s movements is when you get to see just how amazingly and eerily realistic it looks.

For about the price of one month’s rent in a metro apartment, you can grab your very own robotic nightmare from Robugtix which can either be controlled by you like your very own spidery, robotic minion or you can program the T8 to step through a sequence you create.

Robugtix mentions how great the T8 is for someone to learn advanced robotics.

About 10 or 15 years from now, super-villains will be sitting around talking about their formative years where they all owned a small, slightly menacing-looking robotic spider they had to send away for.

[Gizmodo]

Spiders are a little creepy to most people, right?

Well that other percent that didn’t think they were creepy? You can come join the rest of us now.

You’re walking through the woods and notice an interesting looking spider in the middle of its web from a distance. You decide to go in for a closer look. You make that ‘quizzical dog face’ because it’s a pretty weird-looking spider.

As you get closer, something seems a little ‘off’ about the ‘interesting’ spider…which begins to throb and shake in the most un-spider-like movement you’ve ever seen.

That’s about the time when your fear meter begins to spike as you realize the ‘spider’ you’ve been staring at is actually comprised of dead insects, debris and leaves and is being puppeteered by the real spider hiding just out of sight.

The ‘decoy spider’ is being looked at to see whether or not it’s a new species of spider or, in a step leading to total nightmare material, if it’s an already known spider that’s taught itself this behavior.

While scientists continue to determine what’s going on with this horrifying development in the spider kingdom, we’ll just keep hoping that human flesh is completely unpleasant to their terrifying little tastebuds.

[PeruNature.Com]

Since face-eating and bath-salting have finally jumped the shark, a new trend is beginning to emerge…

Only days ago we reported that the base of Mount St. Helens in Washington is swarming with tent caterpillars.

Insects are now climbing the list of things signaling the apocalypse might actually arrive just in time for Christmas.

The LA Times is reporting that the brown widow spider, not to be outdone by the caterpillars in Washington, have had a recent population explosion that guarantees people living in Southern California will be dealing with the less-poisonous cousin to the black widow on a more frequent basis.

Black widows generally hide in darker places like sheds, woodpiles and under porches. Usually they’re tucked away in places people instinctively don’t go. You can already guess where the next piece of information is going…the brown widow is much more extroverted than its deadlier relative.

Brown widows like to relax in peoples’ things outside. Outdoor patio furniture, plastic playground equipment, under the curled lip of a potted plant, your bbq, your ‘outside shoes’ and in drought-free landscaping. Fortunately out of 72 data sites used to get a better understanding of how big this population explosion is, none of the spiders were found in peoples’ homes.

Since 2003, when the brown widow first began appearing in California, the population has exploded compared to the black widows.

Bright-side? Brown widow spider bites generally hurt initially, burn for a little while and then? Really nothing happens. Carry on.

Down-side? These things like to cluster. Turning over a patio chair you’re sitting in to interrupt a small party of these spiders that dwarf their darker cousins in size? Nature’s way of going “Boo!” and making you paranoid about every nook and crannie in your immediate area.

[LA Times]

The zebra spider is unique in that it jumps to kill prey instead of spinning a web. But what happens when you remove gravity. How will the spider adapt. Will it realize it now has amazing John Carter of Mars powers and jump all over the place killing everything?

Thanks to an Egyptian teenager, we will find out for sure later this year. Amr Mohamed of Alexandria won one or two slots for YouTube’s Space Lab competition where anyone was invited to submit experiments that would be carried out on the International Space Station.

It was conceived through Mohamed’s fascination with both science and spiders.

“I’m just interested in how things work, and science seems to answer all my questions,” said Mohamed. “For example, physics can explain the world with just a handful of equations. And biology tells you how your body works. I’m just interested in that stuff.”

Below is Amr’s original video. When space spiders are the scourge of the galaxy, let’s remember who started this.

Just kidding, this kid is awesome. And props to YouTube for providing the opportunity.

[CNN]