Arachnophobia

Spiders have never been my favorite thing. I get creeped out when I wake up with a spider bite, but my distaste for spiders isn't really a phobia—I'd just rather they stay in their hole and I stay in mine. I'm not afraid of them like I am of poisonous snakes (I'll actually pick up garter snakes if I see them, but my Southern California childhood taught me to check for a rattle before picking up a snake...something a girl on my junior high school playground neglected to do).

At any rate, I was catching up on my New York Times today and saw this article from Sept. 22 about the "silk" of golden orb spiders in Madagascar being woven into this gorgeous, saffron-colored textile. Not a thread broke in the weaving process: the fiber is so naturally strong it's been used to make fishing line and nets. To read the article, look here.