When you're back in school, just hold the spider!

The first day of school is coming up, and I wanted to share with you a story that I promise has a cool little life lesson attached!

For as long as I can remember, I have been terrified of spiders. Terrified to the point that I would frequently have nightmares that big, furry spiders were crawling around in my bed or descending from my ceiling, which would result in me running screaming from my bedroom in my sleep. This fear of mine is completely irrational; I have never had a bad experience with a spider. For whatever reason, they just freak me out. (Picture @ left: Me at the Museum of Science being scared of the black widow spider display!)

When the MAS went to the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) convention in Boston in February, I unexpectedly had to come face-to-face with my fear! Chris Mitchell, one of our first volunteers, (see the interview I did with him as an Aspiring Scientist ) brought along his menagerie of cool animals, including a turtle, a scorpion, a corn snake, and (gulp) a rose-haired tarantula (picture @ right)! When I first found out there was going to be the very object of my nightmares within 3 feet of me I was so creeped out. I could feel my face flushing red, my heart rate pick up, and my hands start to shake a little---but I was trying to keep it together because we were at a very important science convention and we were literally surrounded by hundreds of influential people. The tarantula arrived along with the rest of the animals, and for the first couple hours I tried my best to avoid it.

As the day wore on, I started to feel more comfortable with the spider’s presence. Chris had the tarantula out (picture @ left), and I observed it from afar. Slowly but surely, I became fascinated by it. I was watching how it moved its legs, and I realized how similar its legs were to my fingers. Eventually, I realized that if I was every going to conquer my fear of spiders, now was the time. So, I held it (picture below @ right)! And it was one of the coolest thing I have ever done! Its weight was evenly distributed to its feet, so it felt weightless and a little heavy at the same time. I also remember the bottoms of its feet being cool. I was so glad I did it. To this day, I am still a little creeped out by spiders, but nowhere near like I used to be!

Anyways, the reason I shared this story with you is because I got a phrase out of it that has become a staple in my vocabulary: just hold the spider. It reminds me to just be brave when I need courage!

There are going to be moments in your life where you need to just hold the spider. Being a student especially requires bravery on a daily basis. It takes courage to raise your hand and ask a question. It takes courage to realize when you are struggling with something, to actually admit it to yourself, and to get the help you need for it. It takes courage to try out for a sport, or to reach out to other people to make friends. If you remember to just hold the spider, you will conquer these fears and discomforts and grow from the experience.

Ambrose Redmoon, a writer from the 1960’s, once said that “courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear,” and I could not agree more with this statement. It is completely okay to be afraid of things in life from time to time, but never let them hold you back from experiencing things. I hope you keep this in mind as you go back to school. Just hold the spider, and remember, as always, to think, explore, learn!

~Sara

Bug Bites

While I’ll be the first to admit the pure awesomness of summer, there are certain unpleasant realities we have to deal with that just come with the season. Luckily for us, many of them are steps we can take to prevent them from happening. As always, knowledge is the best weapon we can have in our arsenal.

Anyways, there is one particular summer pest I have in mind. When I was younger, all of the kids in my neighborhood used to get together at night to play a game called Manhunt, which was basically two teams playing tag in the dark. When we’d come home, my sisters and I were usually covered in these red, itchy welts. Of course, you know I am talking about mosquito bites.

Mosquitoes are a type of insect. In North America, there are 167 different types of species of mosquito, with 46 different species in Massachusetts alone. Mosquitoes feed on nectar from flowers, but it’s only the females that practice haematophagy, or the drinking blood for food, that mosquitoes are famous for. Females don’t need blood in order to survive, but they take it to get certain nutrients that help develop healthy eggs…think of yourself as a mosquito vitamin.
Mosquitoes are really cool because they are streamlined to search out their prey with their special sensors they are equipped with. When birds and mammals breathe, they take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide as waste when you breathe out. Carbon dioxide is one of the chemicals that mosquitoes are able to detect from up to 100 feet away. Once they are close enough, they can sense the heat radiating off of the mammal, or even visually detect your movements or your clothes contrasting with the background.

Once mosquitoes zero in on the object of their desire, it becomes all about using their specially designed anatomy to obtain their food. Mosquitoes have a very long proboscis, or nose, that has a very thin and sharp end, which is why you never feel it go into your skin. Once the proboscis is inside of the blood vessel, the proteins in the saliva of the mosquito are a special kind that prevent the clotting in your blood. (Clotting is what makes your blood stop flowing when you get a cut, and this is what enables the injury to form a scab and heal.) The mosquito will drink until her belly is full (unless she is disturbed) and fly away.

When the mosquito is gone, she leaves behinds some of the proteins from her saliva in your blood. These proteins provoke an immune response from your body, and that is what causes it to swell up. The proteins also make this welt itch. As soon as your body breaks down the mosquito’s proteins, the bump stops itching. In the meantime, in order to reduce the itching, you can use Calamine lotion or over-the-counter cortisone cream.

To prevent yourself from being bitten in the first place, make sure to wear as much clothing as the weather permits, and to use bug spray containing DEET. Make sure to reapply the bug spray on a regular basis. It is important to protect yourself from mosquito bites, not only to save yourself the annoyance of having to deal with those big, red, itchy bumps, but also to defend yourself against the diseases mosquitoes can sometimes carry.

For more information, check out:

How Stuff Works: How Mosquitoes Work
Wikipedia: Mosquito


Alrighty, guys! I know that you’ll use this information to keep yourself safe and mosquito-free for the rest of the summer! And remember, as always, to think, explore, learn!

~Sara