Jellyfish Currents By:Vikki Valentine Ethereal jellies have been stirring up the world’s waters for at least 550 million years now. So what Caltech researcher John Dabiri wanted to know was whether all that pushing around added up to something big. To figure that out, he and his team squirted green dye in front of jellyfish to make the movement of water around them visible. The creatures swim by contracting a ring of muscles to collapse their umbrella-like bodies and expel water. As the fluid is forced backward, the jellies are thrust forward. The dye revealed that much of the water pushed away is then sucked up again and sticks around as the jellies make their next stroke. This means that as they head hundreds of feet up to the surface to feed each day, they’re dragging along cold, nutrient-rich waters from the ocean deep, then pulling warmer streams back down. With the ability of jellyfish to mix water now proved, Dabiri’s team is focusing on krill and other tiny crustaceans that number in the trillions. Collectively, he believes, these bits of marine life could rival the force of the winds and tides in ocean circulation.

Spider Spigots By: Jeremy Berlin Tarantulas are among the largest, most primitive, best known spiders. Yet how these hairy crawlers negotiate steep, slippery surfaces has been a tangled web for arachnologists. Some say climbing tarantulas – too heavy and fragile to rely on sticky foot hairs as other spiders do – release silk from their feet when they lose their grip. Others insist silk comes only from abdominal spinnerets; the feet merely distribute it when a tarantula goes vertical. Enter Newcastle University biologist Claire Rind. This year she and her colleagues studied several species, including a Chilean rose that they put in a glass tank lined with microscope slides. When the bin was tilted and jostled, the spider slipped but hung on. A video verified that only its feet had touched the slides, which bore silken footprints. The final test was a hard look at molted exoskeletons, whose feet had silk traces and what looked like nozzles among the setae, or hairs. Though some experts remain skeptical about silk-shooting foot spigots, Rind says she’s pushing on. The next strands she hopes to unstick: whether nozzles exist on smaller or juvenile tarantulas – or even on other spider species.

Umbrellas, 2.0 By: Amanda Fiegl We trash countless umbrellas each year, grumbling about how easily they flip or fail us in strong storms. Now several novel designs attempt to confront the classic canopy’s downfalls. To avoid inversion, Dutch designer Gerwin Hoogendoorn made his Senz umbrella (at left) aerodynamic enough to withstand wind tunnel gusts of 70 miles an hour. Greig Brebner, a tall New Zealander alarmed by the onslaught of eye-level spokes he faced while living in London, came up with the Blunt umbrella, with enclosed points that make it both safer and stronger. And for that romantic stroll in the rain, there’s even a tandem umbrella. The boldest revision comes from U.S. entrepreneur Alan Kaufman: Nubrella, a transparent bubble that rests on one’s shoulders or, soon, in a backpack. Sure, it looks a bit odd. But “in real bad weather,” says Kaufman, “not many people are looking at you.”