Leslie Brunetta

Congratulations to Boris Leroy, of the Universite de Rennes! Boris won the Student Distinction Award at the 26th European Congress of Arachnology, and his prize was a copy of Spider Silk, donated by Yale University Press. Written with Mauro Paschetta, Morgane Barbet-Massin, Nicolas Dubos, Alain Canard, and Frederic Ysnel, Boris’s presentation addressed “The future of threatened spiders in the face of climate change: insights with Dolomedes plantarius (Clerck).” Because individual spider species have adapted to particular humidity and temperature ranges, they may serve as excellent indicators of how global climate change will affect the future distribution of various species of other animals. Boris and his colleagues modelled present and future distributions of D. plantarius, an endangered fishing spider, explaining how various models are constructed and how accurate they are likely to be.  Read More 

And even more good news! Spider Silk has been longlisted for the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books, which "celebrates the best in popular science writing." Wow!! The judges say, “This book uses an unlikely subject to draw out many of the major principles of biology, drawing the reader into the surprisingly fascinating world of the spider.” Read More 

We're proud to announce that the Boston Authors Club--the oldest continuous authors group in the US, founded in 1899--has given Spider Silk a Highly Recommended Book Award. Take a look at the awards page to see the other award winners.

We were excited to learn today that Spider Silk is a finalist in the Nature category in ForeWord Review's 2010 Book of the Year Awards list!