NASA

The zebra jumping spider known as Nefertiti makes its rounds inside a habitat on the International Space Station during a student-designed experiment.

The spider who became the star of an Egyptian teenager's outer-space experiment has settled into the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History after returning from a three-month stint aboard the International Space Station.

The zebra jumping spider, known as Nefertiti, was sent into orbit aboard a Japanese cargo ship in July as part of the YouTube Space Lab project. Amr Mohamed, an 18-year-old student from Alexandria, Egypt, proposed the trip as part of an experiment to see whether the "spidernaut" could adapt to zero gravity and pounce on its prey the way it would on Earth. NASA astronaut Sunita Williams kept watch on the spider and confirmed that it could adjust its jumping trajectory to catch small insects.

"I think the spider's absolutely adapted to space," PhysicsCentral quoted Williams as saying in September.

After its stint in orbit, Nefertiti was brought back to Earth aboard SpaceX's Dragon capsule and returned to BioServe Space Technologies, a center at the University of Colorado that facilitates life-science experiments on the space station. The natural history museum's director, Kirk Johnson, personally escorted the spider from Colorado to the museum's Insect Zoo in Washington.

"The Insect Zoo is one of our most popular exhibitions, and we are thrilled that having such a great educational space also gives us the opportunity to host a critter as special as this space-traveling spider," Johnson said in a news release issued today. "And don't think it’s lost on me that the common name for this spider is the 'Jumping Johnson'; we’re practically family already!"

Nefertiti's life span is estimated to be about six months. It will spend its remaining time on display inside the same habitat it occupied in space, which is now set up adjacent to the Insect Zoo's Live Butterfly Pavilion. Although the Smithsonian says "Neffi" is the first jumping spider to return from orbit and successfully readjust to life on Earth, it's not the first spidernaut. Spiders have been spinning their way into Earth orbit for decades. And don't get me started about the Spiders From Mars....

More about bugs in space:

• Teens get to put their bugs in orbit
• Venomous spiders spin weightless webs
• Zero-G fruit flies blaze trail for humans
• Butterflies take flight on space station

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Philip Montgomery

Regional winners in the YouTube Space Lab competition are treated to a zero-gravity airplane flight during their visit to Washington.

Teenage scientists will get to have their bugs — specifically, spiders and bacteria — fly up to the International Space Station. That's the bottom line from the YouTube Space Lab contest, which reached its climax this morning at the Newseum in Washington when the organizers announced that Egypt's Amr Mohamed and the United States' Dorothy Chen and Sara Ma were the global winners.

"The idea of sending an experiment into space is the most exciting thing I have ever heard in my life," Mohamed said in a news release. "Winning YouTube Space Lab means everything to me, to my family, and to the people of the Middle East."

Mohamed's experiment focuses on how zero-gravity affects the way zebra spiders catch their prey. Previous experiments in space have shown that, after an adjustment period, spiders were able to adapt their web-weaving skills to microgravity in orbit. But the zebra spiders might have a harder time, because they depend on capturing their prey by pouncing on them rather than using webs. Will the spiders be able to adjust their jumps for zero-G? "I believe it is going to show a major behavioral change," Mohamed says.

It's all systems go for Mohamed's experiment because the 18-year-old from Alexandria won the 17-to-18 age category in the Space Lab contest, sponsored by YouTube, Lenovo and Space Adventures. The opportunity to have experiments flown up to the space station, and have the orbital activities streamed live via YouTube, was arguably the biggest draw for the five-month-long global Space Lab competition.

Chen and Ma, two 16-year-olds from Troy High School in Michigan, were judged the top entrants in the 14-to-16 group. They took a page from previous research indicating that salmonella bacteria became more virulent in zero-G, a finding that could lead to more effective vaccines against food poisoning. The two girls proposed an experiment to send another type of bacteria, known as Bacillus subtilis, to do its thing under controlled conditions on the space station.

On Earth, Bacillus subtilis has an antifungal effect, and Chen and Ma want to find out whether subjecting the bacteria to zero-G will make them even better fungus-fighters. Who knows? This may be the next frontier in the battle against athlete's foot.

"The idea that something that is your experiment being sent up into space and actually becoming a reality is incredible," Ma said.

Mohamed, Chen and Ma have the choice of traveling to Japan this summer to watch the launch of their experiments on a Japanese cargo craft heading for the space station, or going through a cosmonaut training program in Russia at a later time.

This week, they and the competition's other regional winners were shown a great time in Washington: They received Lenovo laptops, got a special tour of the National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center and met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

"We have a lot of top scientists who come before our committee," Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the West Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, told the kids. "But I think you're better than all of them."

The highlight of the trip was a weightless ride on a Zero G airplane. Here's a video ... from YouTube, naturally ... that recaps the past few days for the Space Lab winners:

Don't you think science-minded students should be as celebrated as, say, the singing stars on "American Idol"? Admittedly, watching bacteria multiply may not be as entertaining as Heejun Han's antics — but in the long run, what's more important?

Here's what physicist Stephen Hawking had to say on the subject: "Humanity's future relies on moving beyond Earth. Realizing this goal will require an entrepreneurial spirit and a new generation of scientists and astronauts. YouTube Space Lab is a wonderful initiative that helps inspire young minds around the world to take a greater interest in science and the future of space exploration."

Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts about how to foster the next generation of scientists and astronauts — and stay tuned to find out the fate of the zero-G jumping spiders and the fungus-fighting germs.

More about the next generation of scientists:

• Obama calls for boosting science education
• Formerly homeless teen praised at science fair
• Students help NASA control robots from space
• Solar cells that go anywhere win invention prize

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

The YouTube Space Lab program aims to get students thinking about outer space as their experimental sphere.

Can zero gravity open the way to better fungicides, novel types of liquid circuitry and magnets ... and previously unseen snowflake shapes? Those are the kinds of questions that six teams of teens want to answer as they move into the final phase of the YouTube Space Lab competition.

The regional winners were named today and will gather in Washington next month for a series of events and tours, including a March 22 awards ceremony. The contest is divided into two age categories, for 14- to 16-year-olds and 17- to 18-year-olds. Three teams were selected in each category to represent the Americas, the Asia-Pacific region, and the Europe/Africa/Middle East region.

While they're in Washington, the teens will be treated to a weightless airplane flight and a special tour and dinner at the National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center, which will be home to the retired space shuttle Discovery by that time.

The regional winners were chosen in a process that was guided by judges as well as by votes cast by more than 150,000 YouTube users. Next month, the judges will announce the top teams in the two age categories. Those teams will have their zero-G experiments run on the International Space Station and live-streamed on YouTube over a Lenovo laptop. The two top teams can travel to Japan this summer to watch their experiment launch as part of Japan's robotic HTV-3 space station supply mission — or they can choose to go through cosmonaut training in Russia once they turn 18.

One of the experiments would send a bacteria with fungus-fighting properties, known as Bacillus subtilis, into space to see whether growth in weightlessness enhances its virulence. Earlier experiments have shown that to be the case for salmonella bacteria, a common culprit in food poisoning.

The other proposed experiments would study how zero-G affects surfactants, ferrofluid magnets, ice crystallization, heat transfer and even the hunting habits of jumping spiders. Rather than going into the details here, let's have the regional winners themselves explain their research:

The Space Lab competition is sponsored by YouTube, Lenovo and Space Adventures, in cooperation with NASA, the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The man behind the idea is Zahaan Bharmal, Google's head of marketing operations for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

"This grand project demonstrates that math and science matter," Bharmal said in today's announcement of the regional winners. "These six winners represent the next generation of scientists and even space explorers. Their families, schools, local communities and countries should be very proud."

Amen to that.

More about student science projects:

• Hey, kids! Put your space experiment in orbit
• Biochemist bags top prize at Google Science Fair
• Obama takes his best shot at White House science fair
• Formerly homeless teen gets presidential shout-out

Alan Boyle is science editor at msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding the Cosmic Log Google+ page to your circles. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.