Black widow spider venom (BWSV) stimulates transmitter release and depletes synaptic vesicles from muscles bathed in a sodium free medium containing 1 mM EGTA. However, frog neuromuscular junctions treated with BWSV in glucosamine Ringer's and post-treated with antivenin recover normal function. This suggests that probably the permanent block of neuromuscular transmission is due to changes in p...

Abstract Colour has been hypothesized to play a crucial role in prey capture for sit-and-wait predators that rely on visual cues deceive their prey. Prey success directly linked colouration spiders; however, evidence so far focuses mostly dorsal colouration, excluding ventral patterns are visible and may be relevant attraction. Here, we explored whether the of colour polymorphic spider is assoc...

Widow benefits have been a part of the Social Security program since the 1939 amendments to the Social Security Act (widower benefits were added later). For many years, the Social Security law called for paying a widow(er) a fraction of the deceased worker's primary insurance amount (PIA). However, the worker--while alive--may have received the full PIA as his or her retirement benefit. Over ti...

Social Security retirement benefits in the United States (US) reflect marital histories and lifetime earnings of current and former married couples. Focusing on the link between marital history and benefit eligibility, this article examines women's marital patterns over the past two decades. Using the 1990 and 2009 Marital History Modules to the Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Part...

Coloration in spiders may serve a number of important functions, for example crypsis, mimicry, aposematism and thermoregulation (Oxford & Gillespie, 1998). However, the evolutionary elaboration of bright colours for these purposes is not straightforward. The opisthosomas of spiders have rather thin, elastic cuticles (Barth, 1973; Dalingwater, 1987) to allow for large changes in volume associate...