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To: Elias Sinderson <elias@cse.ucsc.edu>
Cc: Jim Whitehead <ejw@soe.ucsc.edu>, FoRK <FoRK@xent.com>
Subject: Re: Gecko adhesion finally sussed.
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From: Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@canada.com>
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Date: 04 Sep 2002 22:32:07 -0400

>>>>> "E" == Elias Sinderson <elias@cse.ucsc.edu> writes:

    E> ... The strength to weight ratio of a spider is so high
    E> that Spiderman is able to throw a bus several city blocks with
    E> little effort. His endurance is similarly enhanced as well.

Could this be as simple as a modified molecular structure where the
humanoid cells are in fact exo-skeletally structured with more atoms
per cubic angstrom to achieve the distance-squared tensile strength
enhancements we find when we introduce smaller metal atoms between the
lattice packed grid of iron atoms to create steel?  

This 'steel-effect' might give bone structure and tendons dramatically
(several orders of magnitude) more tensile strength without the need
to significantly increase the weight (like magnesium-alloy or
carbon-fiber weight compared to iron, Spidey could even be way under
weight).  Only increasing tensile strength could accommodate the
mobility and leverage feats since bones are actually formed from
bubbles of organic material hydrolically assisted, tensile strength
cross-sectionally would give his frame the strength to withstand the
muscular enhancement.

    E> As for the spidey senses, well they're really great, but AFAIK
    E> not really well explained in the comic series. 

If the same close-packing gap-filling arachne-molecular structure
modification occurs in neural tissues, and there'd be no reason to
think that these would grow differently from bones and tendons, then
what we are seeing in spidey sense is no more than the heightened
cerebral functions due to shorter/faster/stronger synapses throughout
the entire nervous system.  

Since we know dogs and cats measure human emotions by smell, clearly
hearing the heartbeats, and other subtle clues within their normal
sensory ranges (but seem mystical to us) ...  for Peter Parker,
everything from air currents on his facial-hairs to extremely subtle
hormone smells might coallesce into a general gestalt of Spidey-Sense;
don't forget that he'd acquired this ability in adolescence and thus
would lack any cultural or even pathological basis to explain the
heightened awareness to himself in anything but mystical terms. We
know from issue #1 that his collision-avoidance reflex response time
was far swifter than his cognitive awareness since he 'found' himself
already stuck to the tree when the bicycle was already past and hence
his disorientation ("You ok, Mister?") as if it was a hallucination.

Hmmm ... it may even be physio-psychologically interesting to examine
if Peter Parker's personal quandries arose _because_ his physiological
'Spidey' infrastructure had been advanced whereas his psychological
perception of his self had not, ie, "Peter" was not "Spiderman" but
just the "driver of the bus".  Only, unlike ourselves, he found his
self driving a body-vehicle not evolutionarily matched to his
cognitive time-scales.

-- 
Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@teledyn.com> TeleDynamics Communications Inc
 Business Advantage through Community Software : http://www.teledyn.com
"Computers are useless.  They can only give you answers."(Pablo Picasso)


