Spiders perceive the world primarily by touch.
Their bodies and legs are covered with tiny hairs and pores that can recognize different types of vibrations.
Detail of spider leg hair
For example —
The prey crashes into the net,
Other spiders knock on the door to courtship,
A breeze blows...
These vibrations vary,
As a result, each strand of the cobweb emits a completely different tone.
Each silk in a cobweb emits a completely different tone
A few years ago, scientists translated the three-dimensional structure of the cobweb into music, and they collaborated with the artist Thomas Thomas. Saraceno collaborated to create an interactive instrument that was named "Spider Canvas".
(See part 1 of the end video: Spider Canvas - Musical Performance)
Part I of the video: Spider Canvas - Musical Performance (Palais Museum, Tokyo, France. In 2018)
Recently, the team has built on top of the previous one and added an interactive virtual reality (VR) component that allows people to enter the cobwebs and interact with them.
The researchers say the study not only helps them better understand the three-dimensional structure of spider webs, but even helps us learn the spider's vibrating language.
Marcus, an engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States. Biller said: "Spiders live on vibrating strings. Because of poor vision, spiders perceive the world through vibrations of different frequencies. ”
When it comes to cobwebs, the first thing that probably comes to mind are the webs woven by "round spiders"—flat, round, and spiral webs built around radial spokes.
Most spider webs are not flat, but three-dimensional
However, most spider webs are not flat, but three-dimensional structures – such as flaky webs, tangled webs, and funnel webs.
To explore the structure of the cobwebs, the team raised a tropical orange cloud-spotted spider (Cyrtophora citricola) in a rectangular paddock and let it fill the space with three-dimensional cobwebs.
The web woven by the tropical orange cloud spider (Cyrtophora citricola) is a three-dimensional structure
They used a laser chip light source to illuminate the spider web, and made a high-precision 2D image of the cross-section of the spider web, and then used a special algorithm to piece together these 2D cross-sectional images into a 3D structure of the spider web.
To convert it into music, the researchers assigned different sound frequencies to different spider silks and played notes according to the structural patterns of the cobwebs.
(See part 2 of the video at the end of the article: Ultrasonic processing of spider webs.)
The second part of the video: ultrasound processing of spider webs
The researchers then scanned the images from the spider web construction process and translated every step of the cobweb construction into music.
This means that the notes change as the structure of the cobweb changes, and the listener can hear the cobweb-building process.
Documenting the step-by-step construction of the web means that we can better understand how spiders build 3D webs without any support structure.
And this technology may be used for 3D printing.
(See part III of the video at the end of the article: Ultrasonic processing of spider webs - spider webs during construction))
The third part of the video: Ultrasonic processing of spider webs – spider webs during construction
The "Spider Canvas" allows the listener to hear the spider's music;
In VR, users can even enter the spider web and play with spider silk, so they have a new layer of experience.
"VR environments are really interesting because there are structural features that you can't necessarily recognize with your eyes, but you can catch them with your ears," the researchers said.
"Listening and watching, you can really understand the spider's living environment."
This virtual environment simulates the physical characteristics of real cobwebs.
VR allows people to experience what happens when a part of the spider web is disturbed.
For example, stretch a spider silk, its tone will change;
It is also possible to observe how breaking a spider silk will affect the surrounding spider silk.
Spider web VR can help us understand the structure of the spider web and why spiders build webs the way they do.
(See part IV of the end video: Ultrasonic Processing of Spider Webs – Virtual Reality (VR) Exploration))
The fourth part of the video: Ultrasound processing of spider webs – a virtual reality (VR) exploration
And, most fascinatingly, the team was able to develop an algorithm that would identify the type of vibration of the cobweb, and by the type of vibration it would be possible to identify what a vibration represented—was it the prey that was caught? Or a net under construction? Or is it that other spiders are courting online?
The researchers say:
"These are the foundations of learning spider languages. Now, we're working to create synthetic signals for the underlying spider language. ”
"If we release these signals in a specific rhythmic pattern or vibration pattern, can it affect the spider's behavior?" Can we start communicating with them? These ideas are really exciting.
Video:
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