Talk:Effect of psychoactive drugs on animals

A fact from Effect of psychoactive drugs on animals appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 13 September 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that after ingesting caffeine, spiders fail to build a proper web (see picture)?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2009/September.

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April's Fool Joke?

I am rather surprised to see nobody raised a discussion about this aspect before, but the original article, published in NASA Tech Briefs, was published on *April 1st*. This article only cites a secondary source in New Scientist magazine. Given the lack of clear methodology, evaluation data and handwavy algorithms for analysing described in the original, it seems quite likely to be an April Fool's Day joke.

We should be skeptical of the mention of marijuana in the section on spiders. The article mentions that in the 1995 NASA study they administered the drugs by dissolving them in sugar water and swabbing it on the spiders' mouths. However, the major cannabinoids (active ingredients) found in marijuana are not water soluble. This, along with other studies such as Evolution of Cannabinoid Receptors in Vertebrates: Identification of a CB2 Gene in the Puffer Fish Fugu rubripes by Maurice R. Elphick, published in the MBL Biological Bulletin, April 1, 2002 vol. 202 no. 2 104-107 suggest that the CB1 cannabinoid receptors are only found in vertebrates, and CB2 receptors only in mammalian species. Spiders simply do not have the receptors necessary to 'get high,' and therefore the observed changes to web structure are likely not caused by cannabinoid consumption. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.109.141.166 (talk) 00:47, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems, to me, a little biased against psychedelics to include illustrations of the deformed webs created on caffeine, benzedrine, marijuana, and chloral hydrate, while omitting the relatively normal-looking webs created on mescaline and LSD. Bugbrain 04 (talk) 19:22, 14 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just submitted an FOIA request. We'll get to the bottom of this! Cheers, Benx45h (talk) 20:10, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Paper Reference

the text about spiders says "1984 after a paper by Nathanson in the journal Science,[4] which is discussed below." ... but it is not discussed below. Remove? --MKlaput (talk) 14:10, 5 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it is discussed below ("In 1984, Nathanson reported .."). Materialscientist (talk) 22:58, 5 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

1948 spider study

Can anyone found what was the title of the original Peter Witt study. It would be interesting to see what the original study actually says.--Custoo (talk) 19:41, 11 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]