YouTube Winner Sends Spiders To Space

60-Second Science | Space

Amr Mohamed's winning entry in the YouTube Space Lab contest will have jumping spiders hunt in zero-gravity on the International Space Station. Mariette DiChristina reports.

April 3, 2012

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The first YouTube Space Lab contest has announced its winners. Young people entered by creating a short video of their idea for an experiment to be done in space. I was a judge.

One of the two winners, eighteen-year-old Amr Mohamed of Egypt told me about his idea to have jumping spiders hunt their prey in orbit:

?So I was reading an article about animals that have been in space, and there was the orb weavers. I thought that not all the spiders hunt the same way. Thus came the idea to send jumping spiders?they can adjust their trajectory here on earth to compensate for gravity. Well, they can realize that they don?t have to compensate for gravity anymore.?

Amr got his idea and made his video in just one day. His experiment will actually be done on the International Space Station.

AM: ?And it?s going to be the first time in history for an animal to change its way of hunting to zero-gravity environments.?

MD: ?While I was judging I saw it and I really enjoyed the idea.?

AM: ?Thank you very much.?

?Mariette DiChristina

[The above text is a transcript of this podcast]

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