Every time I see some weird experiment like this I think, "Is everything alright at home?" I know I wouldn't want to spend my day experimenting on dead spiders.

For those of you that have arachnophobia, I would suggest not enrolling at Rice University over in Houston. Now I would expect to see something like this going on in the Biology department, but apparently the Mechanical Engineering students are working on dead spiders.

What the Hell is Necrobotics?

You may have heard of the word necromancy, which refers to communicating with the dead. Necrobotics over at Rice University appears to be using a dead corpse, to do tasks. In their case, dead spiders. Apparently you can insert a needle into a certain spot in the spider and manipulate their legs. They showed off several experiments where the spider can pick up an object and move it to somewhere else.

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This all started back in 2019, after a dead spider was found in the lab. We have all seen a dead spider and saw how their legs curl up when they die. The lab decided to see if they could open them back up (weird!). Apparently the spiders, once deceased, can open and close their legs around 1,000 times. They can also lift about 130% of their body weight.

Check Out the Creepy Video

Rice University shared the video above showing off the experiments that the students have been working on. I personally don't have a problem with spiders, but I can see why some people are freaking out about this online. If you want to check out the full report from the university, you can check it out here.