This holiday season brought some uninvited guests to a few homes where families cut their own Christmas trees — small colonies of what are commonly called jumping spiders, ferocious-looking but ...

Spiders are ideal study subjects because they produce consistent outcomes, researchers say. Arachnologists are used to it. Whenever they tell someone what they do, the reaction is predictable.

“Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey. Along came a spider, who sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffet away.” Well, Miss Muffet has a new problem today because a ...

She sat on a tuffet eating her curds and whey. Along came a spider, who sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffet away. Are you a Miss Muffet, afraid of spiders and apt to take off when you see ...

Little Miss Muffet’s first name was probably Patience. The heroine of the nursery rhyme is assumed to be Patience Moffat, the daughter of Thomas Moffat (d. 1604), an Elizabethan physician and author.

Last week, I lived a nursery rhyme — with an Occam’s razor twist. I was a lot like Little Miss Muffet sans tuffet. In full disclosure, I had to look up tuffet just to be sure. (In case you’re curious, ...

For playwright Sina Skates it’s all about turning work into play. “I get paid to play all the time and that’s kind of awesome,” she said. And, playing is exactly what Skates does with the new ...