Computing with spiders’ webs

Do spiders use their web as a computer? New research, led by the Universities of Bristol and Oxford, will look at spiders' webs to investigate their computational capabilities and based on this research they will develop new sensor technology to measure vibrations and flow. Spiders' webs have evolved over hundreds of millions of years and can be surprisingly complex. Their obvious functionality is to catch and hold prey. However, their remarkably complex structure suggests they can do even more. The web could potentially serve as a signal-processing device. It could therefore help the spider to locate and categorize robustly its prey and other events like broken threads or mates. The spider might use its web as a computer.