{"id":473,"date":"2021-12-14T19:00:02","date_gmt":"2021-12-14T18:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/?p=107000"},"modified":"2021-12-14T19:14:11","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T18:14:11","slug":"no-way-home-an-arachnologist-critiques-spider-mans-powers","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/rss_feed\/no-way-home-an-arachnologist-critiques-spider-mans-powers\/","title":{"rendered":"No Way Home: An arachnologist critiques Spider-Man\u2019s powers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Stephen Kelly\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 14 December 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Spider-Man, Spider-Man \u2013\u00a0famously he can do whatever a spider can. But how true is that, exactly? How accurate are Spider-Man\u2019s powers compared his real-life counterparts?<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a start,\u201d says arachnologist Rod Crawford<\/a>, curator at the Burke Museum in Seattle, \u201cin certain Spider-Man movies he squirts silk out from his hands. Real spiders only produce silk from their spinnerets, which are appendages at the tail end of the abdomen. So if a human carried a spider\u2019s silk production ability, you would normally expect it to come out of the human\u2019s butt.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the release of new Spider-Man film No Way Home<\/em>, Crawford goes through the web slingers\u2019 powers to sort out the Spider-Fact from the Spider-Fiction.<\/p>\n

Strength<\/h2>\n

Spider-Man\u2019s super strength is based on the idea that a spider can lift many times its own weight. Therefore, if a human possessed the abilities of a spider, they too could lift many times their own weight.<\/p>\n

But Crawford is sceptical of that idea. He cites the square-cube law, a mathematical principle which states that when an object undergoes a proportional increase in size, its new volume is proportional to the cube of the multiplier and its new surface area is proportional to the square of the multiplier. What this essentially means is that as an object grows larger, so too does the strain and demands on that object.<\/p>\n

\u201cStrength does not scale directly with size,\u201d says Crawford. \u201cThe smaller you are the easier it is to lift large objects because the large object itself simply does not weigh very much. The larger you are the harder it is to lift large objects because the weight of the large object increases a great deal faster than your own strength. Spiders have about as much strength as insects of the same size range, and a spider in a web is able to lift a prey item that weighs a few times more than the spider. But in an absolute sense that item is still extremely light.\u201d<\/p>\n

Agility<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\""Tom\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Some spiders are more agile than others \u00a9 Sony Pictures Releasing\/Marvel Studios\/PA Media Select<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Spider-Man\u2019s reflexes are super-fast, as befitting certain types of spiders. \u201cSome spiders are extremely quick,\u201d says Crawford. \u201cThere is a ground spider found only in North America which, in terms of body lengths per seconds, can run in relative terms twice as fast as a cheetah. However, if it was scaled up to human size it couldn\u2019t run at all, because of square-cube law.\u201d<\/p>\n

And how about movement such as jumping? \u201cSome are good at jumping, some aren\u2019t,\u201d says Crawford. \u201cHouse spiders are not particularly good jumpers. Jumping spiders are extremely good jumpers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, spider jumping is done in a quite different manner from the jumping of a being like us that has internal bones in our legs that are surrounded by muscle. Spider legs do not have extensor muscles at all. So when they extend the leg in order to jump, that is not done by a muscle, it\u2019s done by hydraulic pressure of blood.<\/p>\n

\u201cA spider that\u2019s jumping increases the blood pressure in jumping legs to such an extent that if the spider had a doctor that doctor would go through the roof about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wall-crawling<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There is no single explanation for Spider-Man\u2019s ability to stick to and climb walls. The explanation for the original comic book Spider-Man, for instance, was that he could bond himself to surfaces through an electrostatic force. While in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man<\/em> movies, Peter Parker is seen growing tiny, razor-sharp hairs from his fingertips, which allowed him to grip surfaces.<\/p>\n

In reality, those methods are not a million miles away from how some spiders climb walls. \u201cAny spider can climb a rough brick wall because they have claws,\u201d explains Crawford. \u201cBut jumping spiders and some other groups have special microscopic hairs on the tips of their legs that are able to cling to smooth surfaces.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hairs of a spider contain hundreds of thousands of even smaller hairs called setules, which can exploit van der Waals forces \u2013 the attraction of intermolecular forces between molecules \u2013 to create a temporary molecular bond with a surface. Scientists have concluded that this bond is so strong that a spider could conceivably carry 173 times its body weight while attached to a surface.<\/p>\n

Webbing<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\""Swinging\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Swinging through the city is not too unbelievable \u00a9 Sony Pictures Releasing\/Marvel Studios\/PA Media Select<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Spider-Man\u2019s webbing is ridiculously strong. Just take 2017\u2019s Spider-Man: Homecoming<\/em>, where it\u2019s proven tough enough to prevent a ferry from splitting in two; or 2004\u2019s Spider-Man 2<\/em>, where it\u2019s stretched to breaking point slowing down a runaway train. And real-life spider silk, explains Crawford, is not too dissimilar.<\/p>\n

\u201cA typical spider thread is only a few microns thick,\u201d he says, \u201cand yet for its size it is considerably stronger than something like a typical steel cable. It is probably the strongest natural fibre known.\u201d This is why scientists are attempting to artificially reproduce spider silk for use in bike helmets and single-use plastics.<\/p>\n

The sight of Spider-Man using his webbing to swing through a city isn\u2019t as far-fetched as you may think either.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpiders do descend from high points to low points on threads,\u201d says Crawford. \u201cThey don\u2019t do any kind of Tarzan-like vine swing, because they don\u2019t have any way of launching themselves, but if a spider is descending on a thread and then there\u2019s any kind of a wind blowing, the spider can be moved by the wind in a horizontal direction to land on something that\u2019s not vertically below a starting point.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spider-sense<\/strong><\/h2>\n

One of Spidey\u2019s most famous powers is his spider-sense, which gives him the ability to sense danger before it happens \u2013\u00a0represented by a tingling feeling at the back of his skull.<\/p>\n

\u201cDanger is a subjective thing,\u201d says Crawford, who is sceptical of the idea of spiders being alerted to danger before it happens. \u201cThat sounds like premonition. And I don\u2019t believe there\u2019s any research that demonstrates premonition in spiders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Real spider senses, Crawford explains, are attuned to their local environment, but do have their limits.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpiders have hairs that are extremely sensitive to air vibrations,\u201d he says, \u201cincluding very specific frequencies of what we would call sounds. They also have what we call a chemotaxis sense, which you might describe as smell by touching. Only a few spiders can detect airborne odours at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd as for their sight, that varies on the kind of spider. Jumping spiders have some of the best vision in the animal kingdom. It\u2019s almost as good as a human\u2019s. However, your typical house spider\u2019s eyes cannot form recognisable images at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

About our expert, Rod Crawford<\/h4>\n

Rod is Curator of Arachnids at The Burke Museum, University of Washington. He runs a website dedicated to debunking spider myths<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read more from\u00a0Popcorn Science<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n