- Jennifer Lopez Attached to Star in ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ Musical Film From ‘Dreamgirls’ Director Bill Condon (EXCLUSIVE) Variety
- Jennifer Lopez To Star In Feature Adaptation Of Broadway Musical ‘Kiss Of The Spider Woman’, Bill Condon Directing Deadline
- Bill Condon’s ‘Kiss of the Spider-Woman’ Remake to Star Jennifer Lopez — World of Reel Jordan Ruimy
- Jennifer Lopez To Star In KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN Film Adaptation BroadwayWorld
- Jennifer Lopez Will Star in Bill Condon Adaptation of ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’: Reports Rolling Stone
Tag Archives: spider
Jennifer Lopez Attached to Star in ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ Musical Film From ‘Dreamgirls’ Director Bill Condon (EXCLUSIVE) – Variety
- Jennifer Lopez Attached to Star in ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ Musical Film From ‘Dreamgirls’ Director Bill Condon (EXCLUSIVE) Variety
- Jennifer Lopez To Star In Feature Adaptation Of Broadway Musical ‘Kiss Of The Spider Woman’, Bill Condon Directing Deadline
- Jennifer Lopez To Star In KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN Film Adaptation BroadwayWorld
- Bill Condon’s ‘Kiss of the Spider-Woman’ Remake to Star Jennifer Lopez — World of Reel Jordan Ruimy
- Jennifer Lopez Will Star in Bill Condon Adaptation of ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’: Reports Rolling Stone
Nicolas Cage Was Surprised to See Himself Fighting a Giant Spider in ‘The Flash’ – The Daily Beast
- Nicolas Cage Was Surprised to See Himself Fighting a Giant Spider in ‘The Flash’ The Daily Beast
- Nicolas Cage says his Superman cameo in ‘The Flash’ looked nothing like what he filmed, calls AI ‘inhumane’ Yahoo Entertainment
- Nicolas Cage: “AI Is a Nightmare,” ‘The Flash’ Cameo “Not What I Did” Hollywood Reporter
- Nicolas Cage Says His Superman Cameo In ‘The Flash’ Was Different Than What He Filmed: “I Did Not Do That” Deadline
- Nicolas Cage Criticises Superman Cameo in The Flash: ‘I Did Not Do That’ IGN
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Nicolas Cage Calls AI ‘Inhumane’ and a ‘Nightmare,’ Says CGI Changed His Superman ‘Flash’ Cameo: Spider Fight ‘Was Not What I Did’ on Set – Variety
- Nicolas Cage Calls AI ‘Inhumane’ and a ‘Nightmare,’ Says CGI Changed His Superman ‘Flash’ Cameo: Spider Fight ‘Was Not What I Did’ on Set Variety
- Nicolas Cage says his Superman cameo in ‘The Flash’ looked nothing like what he filmed, calls AI ‘inhumane’ Yahoo Entertainment
- Nicolas Cage: “AI Is a Nightmare,” ‘The Flash’ Cameo “Not What I Did” Hollywood Reporter
- Nicolas Cage Says His Superman Cameo In ‘The Flash’ Was Different Than What He Filmed: “I Did Not Do That” Deadline
- Nicolas Cage Comments On His Much-Discussed Superman Cameo In THE FLASH: “I Did Not Do That” CBM (Comic Book Movie)
- View Full Coverage on Google News
6x Tougher Than Kevlar: Spider Silk Is Spun by Genetically Modified Silkworms for the First Time – SciTechDaily
- 6x Tougher Than Kevlar: Spider Silk Is Spun by Genetically Modified Silkworms for the First Time SciTechDaily
- Spider silk produced by genetically modified silkworms is 6x stronger than Kevlar Earth.com
- Chinese team uses gene-edited silkworms to make tougher-than-Kevlar spider silk South China Morning Post
- Ultra-strong spider silk made by silkworms injected with spider DNA could be the answer to our sustainable fib Business Insider India
- CRISPR Silkworms Make Spider Silk That Defies Scientific Constraints Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tobey Maguire tells Marvel he’d love to be cast as Spider-man
Look, everyone wants to play Spider-Man. It’s perhaps any actor’s most sought-after role behind Hamlet and The Joker. To prove yourself as a young Hollywood A-lister, you better start learning the phrase, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
One actor who would love to play Spider-Man is Tobey Maguire, an actor who has played Spider-Man four times. After playing Spider-Man throughout the 2000s, he donned the mask one more time for 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home. For those counting at home, we have now said the name “Spider-Man” five times in this article.
“When they called initially, I was like, finally!” Maguire said in an interview with, ahem, Marvel. “I got the call and was immediately open about coming to do this. Not without nerves–you know, ‘What will this look like, and what will the experience be?’ But to get to show up with beautiful, talented, creative people and play together? It’s just like, ‘Yes!’ It’s fun and exciting.”
“I love these films, and I love all of the different series. If these guys called me and said, ‘Would you show up tonight to hang out and goof around?’ or ‘Would you show up to do this movie or read a scene or do a Spider-Man thing?’ It would be a ‘yes!’ Because why wouldn’t I want to do that?”
Maguire doesn’t appear on screen much these days, outside of going pure goblin mode in Babylon. Seeing as that movie didn’t do so hot; it makes sense that he’d tell Marvel that, yes, he’d love another job, especially if he has to “read a scene” or “do a Spider-Man thing” or simply hang out in the background of scenes until the other Spider-Men are ready for a hug. Fellow Spider-Man Andrew Garfield is also open to more, so we look forward to the Marvel Cinematic Universe becoming even more unwieldy, confusing, and laden with crossovers. Excelsior!
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Officially-licensed socks
Sock Affairs wants you to enrobe your feet in their officially licensed socks with art from Pink Floyd and AC/DC records.
[via Variety]
One Of The Best-Selling Steam Games Last Month Was A Police Sim
Valve just updated its list of the top new releases on Steam for November. There are the usual suspects like Crysis 2 and 3, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Sonic Frontiers. There’s also my favorite single player game of the year, Pentiment, and a neat little pixely extraction shooter that caught our eye a few months ago called Zero Sievert. But one of the top 20 best-selling Steam games last month was, of all things, a fucking police sim.
Released last month, Police Simulator: Patrol Officers takes place in the fictional U.S. city of Brighton. The game asks you to “take up the badge” as a cop, which actually means harassing citizens with traffic violation citations, arresting them for possession of drugs, “chasing graffiti sprayers,” and other cop things. It’s currently holding a “very positive” review status, with several active and former law enforcement officers chiming in to the comments, and others who didn’t get enough of a kick out of bullying people in childhood weighing in, as well.
One reviewer sums up a typical experience in Police Simulator. It’s written out like a poem (and you should read it as such):
I started my first shift.
I saw a lady jay walking, so I stopped her.
She seemed nervous, so I asked for her ID.
I decided then to search her.
She ran.
I shot her with my stun gun.
I found a switch blade and human teeth, so I arrested her.
I called for back up, and they threw her in the patty wagon.
Cleaning the streets, one person at a time.
I mean where to even begin with this? Honestly, this makes that Call of Duty level from the last game look tame. And what is with the human teeth? Do the devs assume people carry such things around, and do that regular ol’ street cops spend most of their time thwarting murders with a penchant for taking teeth? “First person I searched I found human teeth. 10/10” reads another review.
Other reviews suggest this is a pretty straightforward, somewhat buggy and feature-lacking civil duty sim. Such a boring job, it seems, isn’t up to everyone’s hopes. Another Steam review reads:
Pro’s[sic]: Be a cop.
Con’s[sic]: Can’t be a bad cop.
First thing I did was pull out my pistol and shoot a lady that was jaywalking and I got booted off the job. I couldn’t even do the remaining 16 bullets in my mag before reloading and yelling at her not to move.
Fun game, but a bit unrealistic.
7/10 – worth it for ramming your policecar [sic] into randoms and fleeing the scene.
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“Shoot first talk later” reads another review. “This game was pretty fun at first” laments a negative review, “but unlike LSPDFR mod in Grand Theft Auto V, you HAVE to play by a real Cop’s duties. You have no real freedom to goof around.”
I’ve played a ton of GTA, a game where you regularly do horrible things to people, but this one strikes me as a little odd. I probably shouldn’t throw stones, and there are other examples of questionably tone deaf uses of police imagery in games. But it’s hard not to read comments from people bemoaning that a game meant to simulate daily police work which is mostly, boring civil offenses like traffic violations is not exciting enough because it doesn’t give you enough opportunities to shoot people.
“Terrifying Rotting Flesh Wound:” The U.S. Spider with One Hellish Bite
Spiders are one of the hallmarks of Halloween. But did you know there is a spider living in North America with venom capable of destroying human flesh?
The brown recluse spider (Loxosceles reclusa) is native to the U.S. and has established itself in a number of states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.
The spider, which is considered among the most dangerous in North America, has also been spotted outside this range in other states. But these tend to be isolated cases where brown recluses have been inadvertently transported to these areas by humans.
This species is common within its range and can is often found in homes, but as the name suggests they tend to stay hidden and are not aggressive, Jerome Goddard, a professor of medical entomology at Mississippi State University’s Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Entomology, and Plant Pathology, told Newsweek.
iStock
As a result, brown recluse bites are relatively rare and when they do occur, it is usually because a spider is trapped against the skin and feels threatened, for example if someone rolls onto one while sleeping.
The venom of this spider can cause damage to local tissues and may produce a variety of symptoms. In many cases, the individual who is bitten experiences no notable effects.
“Brown recluse bite reactions may vary from no reaction at all, to a mild red wound, to a terrifying rotting flesh wound,” Goddard said.
The bite of brown recluse may feel like a pinprick and is usually painless until three to eight hours later, when it might become red, swollen and tender, according to Goddard.
The central area of a brown recluse bite eventually becomes pale or blue, not red, Goddard said. After 24 hours have passed, intense pain may develop. Later, a black scab may appear and, eventually, an area around the site may decay and slough away in a process known as “necrosis”—or death of body tissue—producing an ulcer.
Finally, the edges of the wound thicken and become raised, whereas the central area is filled by scar tissue. Healing may take months, and the victim could be left with a sunken scar.
“Their bites can produce nasty, slow-to-heal lesions that leave unsightly scars,” Goddard said.
The primary component of brown recluse venom that causes necrosis in the skin is likely an enzyme called sphingomyelinase D, which degrades fibrinogen (a clotting factor) and fibronectin (a protein that plays a role in tissue repair).
“Sphingomyelinase D also disrupts basement membrane structures, which act as a platform for cells to grow,” Goddard said. “All of this leads to local tissue death.”
The proportion of brown recluse bites that result in necrotic wounds is not entirely clear because many self-reported bites are actually something else, such as a staph infection, according to Goddard.
Getty Images
But the entomologist said his best estimate was that around 10 to 50 percent of brown recluse bites lead to necrosis in some form.
The lack of development of necrosis may be due to factors unique to the immune system of the individual that is bitten.
“Or like venomous snakes, perhaps brown recluse spiders may deliver ‘dry’ bites wherein they withhold or don’t inject much venom,” Goddard said.
In rare cases—perhaps less than one percent of incidents—brown recluse bites can lead to a potentially serious systemic illness roughly two to three days after the bite that affects the whole body.
This illness—known as “systemic loxoscelism”—is characterized by anemia, blood in the urine, fever, rash, nausea, vomiting and coma. In very rare cases, deaths have resulted from the systemic reaction of a brown recluse bite. The local necrotic wounds are not fatal.
The treatment of brown recluse bites is controversial and appears to be constantly changing, the Goddard said.
“A specific antidote—or antivenin—has shown success in patients prior to development of the necrotic lesion, but I don’t think it is widely available,” he said. “Also, some brown recluse bites are unremarkable, not leading to necrosis; therefore, treatment may not be needed in those cases.”
Some research has indicated that the application of ice to the bite site is effective. This may be because the necrotic enzyme sphingomyelinase D increases in activity as temperature rises.
At one time, early, total surgical excision of the bite site followed by skin-grafting was recommended. But more recent evidence no longer supports wound excision as a treatment, according to Goddard.
Some scientists and physicians have reported success in treating the individual with a medication known as dapsone. But some evidence shows that this drug is completely ineffective.
The Fake Game Taking Over Batman Arkham Fandom, Explained
The best video games are imaginary. Often they exist completely in our heads, or in the dreamy space between their initial announcement and what we finally end up playing. This is where “Arkham World” exists. Born from a 2011 Video Game Awards gag, the completely fictitious entry in the massively popular Batman Arkham series is now all some fans can talk about.
Earlier this month, posts about a supposed Arkham World began taking over the Batman Arkham subreddit. Despite being dedicated to an aging single-player series, this particular internet watering hole remains surprisingly active. It has over 150,000 members, with hundreds or more active at any given time. “This subreddit is dedicated to the discussion of all Batman Arkham Lore,” reads the subscription. “Including the Rocksteady Trilogy, Arkham Origins and all tie-in games and comics, including the Newest Edition Arkham World.”
Arkham World isn’t real, but that didn’t stop the subreddit from celebrating the one-year anniversary of its launch on August 2. “I loved the open world in this game the most because it was a literal world,” Reddit user FrozeninIce248 wrote. “A world full of criminals and insane people and the updated gameplay from Arkham Knight makes this game the best superhero game of all time.”
Dozens of other commenters responded with their own critical takes, sharing their favorite moments and biggest surprises. “Dude I am currently high at a Rob zombie concert and I’m 90% sure that this game isn’t real and I’m scared to know if it is,” read one comment buried deep among the critical praise.
The one-year anniversary was just the start of Arkham World’s weeks-long tribute. The lore around it has since expanded to include a special mission where you play as Alfred, a crossover with Spider-Man, and even a Darth Vader boss fight. Players from the Spider-Man community have even joined in, treating the crossover as canon. Reddit is full of shitposting, but it’s still rare to see fans rally so aggressively around a bit and maintain it for weeks. So why go to all the trouble to manifest a game that never existed?
FrozeninIce248 told Kotaku in a Reddit chat that they stole the idea from the Titanfall community, where pretending that Titanfall 3 already exists is an ongoing part of the subculture. The name Arkham World, meanwhile, was an obvious choice since it was a codename teased by The Joker in a cutscene created by Rocksteady for him to claim the best character award at the 2011 VGAs. The eventual game that was released was Arkham Knight, leaving “Arkham World” free to fill the void in players’ imagination when they had no actual Batman game to look forward to in the near future.
In the forthcoming game Gotham Knights, made by Warner Bros. Montreal, the studio behind Arkham Origins, Batman is already dead. It’s also not technically part of the Arkham-verse. Rocksteady’s next project, Suicide Squad, is set in the same world as the Arkham games, but Batman hasn’t been revealed to be part of it, and it’s a shooter rather than a stealth brawler.
“Suicide Squad is set in the same universe but is not centered around Batman at all, we don’t even know if he’s going to appear at all,” Reddit user BigSexy17 told Kotaku. “r/ArkhamGames and Arkham Fans in General gravitated towards the series because of Batman, Batman fans all around the world praise and worship these games as the true Batman Experience.”
Now unleashed, Arkham World has taken on a life of its own. “You have this entire group of people claiming that we’re all talking about a game that ‘doesn’t exist,’” Unhappyworker77 said.
Reddit user LukeDBZ2 compared it to the fascination with the Morbius meme “it’s Morbin’ time” from earlier this summer. It was dumb, wonderful, and became so popular it may or may not have convinced Sony to set millions of dollars on fire bringing Morbius back to theaters so it could bomb a second time. “Morbius never said ‘it’s Morbin’ time’ and there is not a sequel to Arkham Knight…or is there?” they said. “One thing is confirmed tho, after years of no new content, the sub has became the Arkham Asylum itself.”
There’s also precedent for Arkham World in other fandoms. When Elden Ring went years during development with no new details, some fans feared the worst. As with Titanfall, The Elden Ring subreddit at one point started pretending the game had already been released, making up famous boss battles and more. “It exists because the fans starve [for] content and enjoyed the time when they anticipated the release of the next Arkham title,” TheXpender told Kotaku.
The shitposting is still going, and even resulted in some Reddit users trying to spin Arkham World off into its own subreddit. Some fans want to offload the memes there. “If we are going to flood the sub with more Arkham World and less actual posts about the real games, then it should all be moved to its own sub r/Arkhamworld,” wrote Fanboyxxx. “We do need to take a step back and think about what we are doing, and honestly, if it’s clever and amusing it’s good with me, just leave it on its own sub now.”
But that doesn’t seem likely. Arkham World was birthed on r/BatmanArkham and that’s where it will likely stay. At least until Gotham Knights, Suicide Squad, or an actual Batman Arkham sequel launches. “Arkham World means the world to me,” Redditor Nadongus told Kotaku. “Nothing brings a community together quite like a collective fever dream fueled by incoherent shitposts. I’m out here having the time of my life.”
Scientists Are Using Dead Spiders as Horrifying Claw Grabbers
We’ve likely all killed a spider or two in the past, but what if that arachnid’s corpse could be repurposed into something useful? Well, researchers at Rice University in Texas think it can and are pioneering the field of “necrobotics” by injecting dead spiders with air to use them to grasp small objects.
When Rice University assistant professor of mechanical engineering Daniel Preston was setting up his lab, he and graduate student Faye Yap wondered why a dead spider in the corner of the room had its legs curled up. It turns out that spiders extend their legs using hydraulic pressure, which comes from fluid pumped into their legs from a central cavity, which means that when they die, their legs permanently retract. Preston and Yap wondered if they could hack that hydraulic process by injecting air into a dead spider’s legs to force them open. They found that they could, and their study on this macabre opportunity to make a biological gripper was published in Advanced Science on Monday.
“[Spiders] actually only have flexing muscles,” Yap said in a video call, meaning that spiders can pull their legs in, but have no muscles to extend them. “The way they extend their legs is using hydraulic pressure.”
This pressure comes from the spider’s prosoma—the spider’s cephalothorax, where its legs attach to its body—which sends fluid to the arachnid’s legs, allowing it to walk—individual legs are controlled by the opening and closing of valves in the spider’s anatomy. Preston, Yap, and colleagues found that if they carefully inserted a syringe into the prosoma of a dead spider, they could mimic the hydraulic pressure with air, extending and retracting all of the spider’s legs at once. This meant that the spider could be used as a gripper. But why attempt something so disturbing?
“We’re interested in using them for things like sample collection,” Preston said. “They have an intrinsic compliance due to this hydraulic or pneumatic actuation that we’re able to apply, and that helps protect fragile samples or even other living bugs, for example, if we wanted to collect those in the field.”
The properties of the repurposed arachnid are incredibly promising: The team found that a spider gripper could last upwards of 1,000 open/close cycles, and could be used to lift 130% of its own body weight.
The researchers mainly used wolf spiders for the work in this particular manuscript, but they believe that other spider species could be used as well. Interestingly, Yap says that the group found that spiders with larger body mass—such as the Goliath spider—were only able to lift objects that were 1/10th their body weight, while smaller spiders—like jumping spiders—might be able to lift as much as two times their body weight.
As for how those outside the lab reacted to the project, Preston says most were supportive and even excited when they saw how effective the gripper was. Others, though, weren’t too happy about having spiders around.
“One of the employees that works in our front office really doesn’t like spiders. So we had to give a call to the front office whenever we had another delivery coming in for us to use for the project and just kind of give them a heads up,” said Preston with a chuckle. The team ordered their spiders from a biological supply company, but, unfortunately, some of them did not come deceased. Yap elaborated: “Sometimes they are inanimate, but sometimes we do have to euthanize them. So we do look up the most humane way to kill them from literature.”
While the project might seem bizarre, Preston believes it fits right within his lab’s research scope of studying soft robotics. “We look at anything at the intersection of energy, materials and fluids,” he says. “Soft robotics typically applies nontraditional materials, things that are not the typical hard plastics metals but instead things like hydrogels and elastomers and unique actuation modes like magnetism and light.” Preston and Yap are very interested in using this as a jumping-off point for other research on necrobotic grippers, like figuring out how to open and close individual legs.
While researchers across the globe are working on bio-inspired robotics, Preston, Yap, and the rest of the team cut to the chase and used biology itself, plucked from the floor of their lab. This creative, nature-inspired work is clearly mad science at its best.