The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the betterment of all humanity. It is the world's largest general scientific society, with over 120,000 members, and is the publisher of the well-known scientific journal Science.
Arachnology is the scientific study of spiders and related animals such as scorpions, pseudoscorpions, and harvestmen, collectively called arachnids. Those who study spiders and other arachnids are arachnologists. More narrowly, the study of spiders alone is known as araneology.
The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) is a scholarly, non-political and non-profit professional association open to all persons interested in Asia and the study of Asia. It is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. With approximately 8,000 members worldwide, from all the regions and countries of Asia and across academic disciplines, the AAS is the largest organization focussing on Asian studies.
Ralph Vary Chamberlin was an American biologist, ethnographer, and historian from Salt Lake City, Utah. He was a faculty member of the University of Utah for over 25 years, where he helped establish the School of Medicine and served as its first dean, and later became head of the zoology department. He also taught at Brigham Young University and the University of Pennsylvania, and worked for over a decade at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, where he described species from around the world.
Zygoballus is a genus of jumping spiders found in North and South America.
The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) is a professional society that was founded in 1960.
The Opisthothelae are spiders within the order Araneae, consisting of the Mygalomorphae and the Araneomorphae, but excluding the Mesothelae. The Opisthothelae are sometimes presented as an unranked clade and sometimes as a suborder of the Araneae. In the latter case, the Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae are treated as infraorders.
The Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) is a division within the American Astronomical Society (AAS) devoted to solar system research. It was founded in 1968. The first organizing committee members were: Edward Anders, Lewis Branscomb, Joseph W. Chamberlain, Richard M. Goody, John S. Hall, Arvidas Kliore, Michael B. McElroy, Tobias Owen, Gordon Pettengill, Carl Sagan, and Harlan James Smith. As of 2009, it is the largest special-interest division within the AAS. As of Oct 2010, membership totaled approximately 1415 planetary scientists and astronomers, including about 20% residing outside the U.S.
Robert Whyte is an Australian author, editor and journalist. His works include modernist fiction, political satire, science journalism and books. He is a founding co-owner and director of the Brisbane-based multimedia firm ToadShow. After 2012 he participated in the Australian Government's new species exploration program Bush Blitz. His works include the novel Manacles (1985), influenced by Irish authors James Joyce and Flann O'Brien, a practical guide to creek restoration, The Creek in Our Back Yard (2011) and A Field Guide to Spiders of Australia for CSIRO Publishing 2017.
Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all orders of organisms. Spiders are found worldwide on every continent except for Antarctica, and have become established in nearly every habitat with the exceptions of air and sea colonization. As of July 2019, at least 48,200 spider species, and 120 families have been recorded by taxonomists. However, there has been dissension within the scientific community as to how all these families should be classified, as evidenced by the over 20 different classifications that have been proposed since 1900.
Darwin's bark spider is an orb-weaver spider that produces the largest known orb webs, ranging from 900 to 28,000 square centimetres, with bridge lines spanning up to 25 metres (82 ft). The spider was discovered in Madagascar in the Andasibe-Mantadia National Park in 2009. Its silk is the toughest biological material ever studied, over ten times tougher than a similarly-sized piece of Kevlar. The species was named in honour of the naturalist Charles Darwin, with the description being prepared precisely 150 years after the publication of The Origin of Species, on 24 November 2009.
Herbert Walter Levi was professor emeritus of zoology and curator of arachnology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. He was born in Germany, educated there and at Leighton Park School, Reading in England. He then received his higher education at the University of Connecticut and the University of Wisconsin. Levi authored about 150 scientific papers on spiders and on biological conservation. He is the author of the popular Golden Guide Spiders and their Kin, with Lorna Rose Levi and Herbert Spencer Zim.
The International Society of Arachnology (ISA) promotes the study of arachnids and the exchange of information among researchers in this field. It acts as an umbrella organisation for regional societies and individuals interested in spiders, and related animals, and organises an International Congress every three years.
The British Arachnological Society (BAS) is the UK’s first body devoted exclusively to the study of arachnids. The primary objectives of the Society are to encourage interest in arachnology in people of all ages and to generate, promote and disseminate arachnological knowledge and understanding by all suitable means. In particular, it works to foster co-operation between amateur and professional arachnologists.
Hisham Kamal El-Din El-Hennawy is an Egyptian arachnologist and forensic scientist
Crossopriza lyoni is a widespread species of cellar spiders that prefer to live in or around human structures. They are commonly known as tailed cellar spiders, tailed daddy longlegs spiders, and sometimes box spiders. They all possess extremely long fragile legs that can reach up to 6 cm (2.4 in) long and a body length of that ranges from 2.5 to 7 mm. Their abdomens are distinctly squarish when viewed from the side and their carapace is more or less circular when viewed from above. They also possess two kinds of sound-producing organs and have six eyes.
The Association for Academic Surgery is the world's largest organization dedicated exclusively to the promotion of surgical research. It has about 3,000 active and senior members. Its annual meeting is the association's main forum to communicate scientific progress in surgery. Until 2005, the association held its own meetings. These meetings were hosted by surgical university departments in the United States. In 2006, the organization merged its annual meeting with the annual meeting of the Society of University Surgeons to form the "Academic Surgical Congress".
Dmitry Evstratievich Kharitonov, also spelt Charitonov, was the first native Russian arachnologist. In 1916 he founded the arachnological school of Perm State University, the oldest arachnology research group in Russia. The culmination of his work was the comprehensive Katalog der russischen Spinnen, published bilingually in 1932, with an addition published in 1936. He grew up under the supervision of Dmitry Mikhailovich Fedotov, an arachnologist from St. Petersburg. One of his postgraduates, T.S. Mkheidze, has been working in Georgia since the 1930s.
Pekka T. Lehtinen is a Finnish arachnologist and taxonomist. He is known for his works in systematics and for the many expeditions in which he has participated.
The Australasian Arachnological Society is a body dedicated to promotion of knowledge and study of arachnids in the Australasian realm, which includes Australia, New Zealand, South-east Asia, Oceania and the Pacific Islands. Membership is open to all individuals and scientific institutions. The Society maintains a large library of reference books and scientific journals housed at Queensland Museum. The society is informally structured to promote the study of arachnology to amateurs, students, professionals and institutions.
