This postFrom Thought Provoking Message of the Day, I read about the “Worm Whisperer” this morning. Quite interesting — Kelly Dorgan “has challenged a century-old theory, endorsed by none other than Charles Darwin, about how worms move.” Everyone used to think that worms (and other burrowing creatures) would actually eat the mud, ingest it, and then excrete it. Not anymore:
By studying the stress fields around the worms, Dorgan discovered that they actually launch their mouths inside out like a wedge to pry open the mud. Then they ease into the space opened by the crack. To keep moving, they just keep leveraging the crack.
That’s cool. :)
There are nine other people profiled in the Popular Science article, including Nima Arkani-Hamed (fifth dimension, multiple universes), Melody Swartz (growing organs), Omar Yaghi (hydrogen nanoscaffolds), and Terry Tao (cleaning up jumbled signals mathematically). Fascinating stuff, really — I recommend reading through all of the articles.
