LACKING SHARP EYESIGHT, spiders use their legs to feel vibrations in their webs. A web’s silken strands have different lengths and tensions and, as a result, different frequencies. The resident spider is attuned to those frequencies to detect prey, potential mates, or threats. Now, a group of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology aims to convey a bit of that Spidey sense to humans. With 3D laser imaging based on cobweb cross sections (above), the MIT team mapped the web of a tropical tent-web spider. To the strands, the scientists assigned musical tones audible to humans. They also built a virtual reality interface that lets users “play” the spiderweb like an eerie-sounding stringed instrument. “We’re trying to give the spider a voice,” said MIT’s Markus Buehler—and, maybe someday, communicate…