News you can use: Researchers hope to raise awareness that spiders could eat us all in a year

Trigger warning: spiders!

To be honest, a story about spiders wouldn’t have merited a second look if it weren’t for the super-handy infographic showing the relative weight of the world’s population of spiders (merged into one giant spider) and the Titanic. Someone in the graphics department had a weird morning.

Spiders are everywhere. And they could eat all of us in under a year. https://t.co/tInyuTs66H pic.twitter.com/D7RsxDTfFP

— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) March 28, 2017

If we’d made it to the end of the piece, we might have known whether to like spiders more or less; we’d wager a lot of people quit right after the introduction, which revealed that a study of North Carolina homes turned up spiders in 100 percent of them.

The researchers behind the study said they hope their estimates “raise public awareness and increase the level of appreciation for the important global role of spiders in terrestrial food webs.” If that means wanting them all dead, then yes, the study was a huge success.

We need to build a wall to keep the spiders out.

— Chris Stephens (@PureGuesswork) March 28, 2017

Spiders are predators & go after prey roughly their own size, not humans. Insects, mosquitos in particular, do go after humans.

— suntiger745 (@suntiger745) March 28, 2017

Frankly, our cats and dogs are more likely to eat us than spiders are. Stupid scare propaganda headline.

— suntiger745 (@suntiger745) March 28, 2017

Our cats and dogs are more likely to eat us? That doesn’t help at all.

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You'd need about 2,000 pounds of spiders to fully devour a 200-pound man in one sitting #tuesdaythought https://t.co/26irzLxhGZ

— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) March 28, 2017

None of this is helping.

Sure, spiders COULD eat all of us, but SHOULD they? Yes, yes they should.

— metal dot november ugh whatever (@metaltxt) March 28, 2017

Spiders AREN’T more scared of us than we are of them. In fact they mock our lack of legs and how easy it is to gain access to our homes.

— GCS (@GCSRecruitment) March 28, 2017

OK, spiders apparently have a Twitter account.

Still, We love you so much We wouldn't DREAM of eating you all up, humans! Who would follow us? WHO would admire Victor's Fabergé? ::) ::) ? pic.twitter.com/0cT9pqTBoL

— Hi! We Are Spiders (@hiwearespiders) March 28, 2017

https://twitter.com/GavinCleaver/status/846748099888459776