Once again we plumb the depths of the internet to bring you your weekly helping of DOOM:

Arachnaphobia

• What may have been the world’s deadliest spider, the Brazilian Wandering Spider, was found in Tulsa Oklahoma Whole Foods, though a follow up story later in the week has other experts contending that this may have been a far less lethal variety. Doombot experts agree that, lethal or not, giant spiders do not belong at the grocery store.
• A bite from a recluse spider allows a Georgia man to walk again. This news should give hope to several groups, including those who believe in reincarnation, those who believe in Jesus, and the slightly smaller subset of those who believe in Jesus being reincarnated as a spider. JESUS SPIDER!

Financial Meltdown

• A NY Times piece suggests that AIG executives should keep their bonuses.
• Iowa senator Charles Grassley suggest that AIG executives should consider suicide.

Gadgetry

• A Finnish computer programer has missing finger replaced with a USB drive. I want to use the term “thumb drive” to explain what the device does, but it kind of muddles the whole point I’m trying to clarify, doesn’t it?
• Scientists have developed a laser gun that destroys mosquitos by locking on to the unique audio frequency of mosquitos in flight, and then shoots their wings off. Given that the scientists already call this a ”weapon of mosquito destruction” (WMD), and the design team included a scientist who worked on the cold war era Star Wars project, all avenues of snark appear to have been explored. 

Animal Kingdom

• Cattle apparently respond to magnetic fields and can be confused by the artificial fields generated by power lines. The take away is to avoid using cattle as compass bearings in areas where artificial magnetic fields might be present. 
• A free-tailed bat perishes the way we’d all like to go, clinging to Discover space shuttle during liftoff. 
• The BBC continues to be my go-to source for pink animals with coverage of a pink elephant in Africa. 

Spy Games

• A 1988 photo shows current Russian prime minister, former KGB agent Vladimir Putin posing as a tourist (complete with dorky camera around the neck) during a visit from Ronald Reagan. 
• Apparently DNA computing is used to decrypt powerful encryption schemes (who knew?), scientists now suggest it can also be used to encrypt information. 

SciFi Fandom

• The NY Times shares with us a story about men who furnish their homes with replicas of the Captain’s chair from the original Star Trek series. We’ve already hit our Kobayashi Maru joke limit for the month, so what more is there to say? 
• A Star Wars fan constructed a LEGO scale model of a Mon Calamari cruiser that weighs in at 52 pounds and 7 feet in length. We will not make a “it’s a trap” joke here.*

YouTube video of The Week

• Brought to our attention via Doombot fan-club president Jordan, we bring you: Extreme Sheep LED Art.

* Instead, we will make it here: IT’S A TRAP!