Science Magazine Snippet: Worms blob together, act as liquid or solid

Half the size of a cigarette and squirmy, the black aquatic worm Lumbriculus variegatus isn’t much to look at. But these denizens of sulfur caves and flooded areas like company and often many thousands come together as “blobs” with behavior not unlike the 1958 movie by the same name. Read more: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/...

Video credit:

video
Bhamla Lab
School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology

story by
Elizabeth Pennisi

music
"Airdrop"
Nguyên Khôi Nguyên

About Science Snippets:

These videos are short snippets from researchers' work—often videos actually used as data in a study or to demonstrate results in a paper. For context or additional explanation, check paper links and credits.

1. Gaël Gauthier: Looks like pubic hair
2. _Paws_: Like the previous video about marathon runners and how they form a wave; I wonder if this can be used to reference such behavior in how creatures behave as a group.
3. Hot Dogs!: I hate worms , why tf am I watching this?
4. Yatin T: The odd behavior helps these animals weather extreme conditions. The worms breathe through their skin and need to stay wet. A single worm lives less than an hour in air at room temperature and humidity. But a blob of 20 survives more than 5 hours, and the survival time goes up as the number of worms increases, the researchers discovered. The outer ones may dry out, but inner ones stay moist. The worms glom together to minimize the exposed surface area that loses moisture, and thus really big blobs can even withstand being dried with a hairdryer, the researchers note. Source : link in the discription.
5. ProjectPhysX: Spectacular!
6. Name Unavailable: Make a video so I can jerk off to it
7. Kesateria Matahari: i want to shower myself with these babies
8. Samuel Mason: Makes my ass itch.
9. SnaredHare_22: why did I watch that
10. Rook Benavides: This is part of the reason flamethrowers were invented
11. Yatin T: Interesting indeed!
12. Nathan Stitt: Mmm yum
13. Victor Reitstätter: This is a meme from march you don’t get it yet
14. Loh Yen Jun: LOL
15. bobsagget823: What a dumb question and useless answer
16. Jennifer Müller: interesting. why do they behave like that?
17. Rick Sanchez: Interested in bathing in these? Anyone?
18. Alexandria School of Science: wow, out comes the s and p orbitals.
19. Han Zhang: Oh yes, of course, who hasn't seen the famous "blob" movie of 1958?
20. Stefano Renzo Garcia Castañeda: Not very self explanatory
21. Jess Stuart: Could these worms simply be clumping together as a response to ambient light? These worms live in caves, right? Need to do a control experiment in the dark.
22. Gohsti: Yes xd
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Snippet: Worms blob together, act as liquid or solid
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Science & Technology	Upload TimePublished on 7 Jan 2019