From USA TODAY
Spider-sense? Humans have it
What's the dim figure lurking in the corner? Yikes, a spider! A new study suggests that humans have a special spider-sense that makes us exquisitely attuned to the crawling critters, even when we're paying no attention to our surroundings. Such spider-specific vigilance makes sense, because early humans and Homo sapiens evolved in Africa in the company of highly poisonous spiders, says the study's lead author. One bite can incapacitate victims for days – leaving them vulnerable to other dangers – and can even cause death. So a talent for noticing spiders may have been advantageous eons ago, even if it isn't now. To test whether humans have a special eye for spiders, the scientists recruited college students to perform a simple task: look at lines shown on a computer monitor and choose the longest. After the subjects had performed the task three times, they were asked to do it again. This time, in addition to the lines, another object flashed on the screen. It appeared for just 200 milliseconds, about as much time as the blink of an eye.
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