Science & technology | Mating preferences

Come into my beauty parlour

Female spiders are picky lovers

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FREUD would have loved it: a tale of sexual cannibalism brought on by girls' youthful experience of older men. The only twist is that it is in spiders.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Come into my beauty parlour”

Vlad the impaler

From the November 1st 2003 edition

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Dr Dorothy Bishop.

Elon Musk is causing problems for the Royal Society

His continued membership has led to a high-profile resignation

Legal Amazon preservation area borders the field for soybean planting.

Deforestation is costing Brazilian farmers millions

Without trees to circulate moisture, the land is getting hotter and drier


Robot mixing at Toyota Research Institute.

Robots can learn new actions faster thanks to AI techniques

They could soon show their moves in settings from car factories to care homes


Scientists are learning why ultra-processed foods are bad for you

A mystery is finally being solved

Scientific publishers are producing more papers than ever

Concerns about some of their business models are building

The two types of human laugh

One is caused by tickling; the other by everything else