Tiny Worm Flash Mob Caught Under the Microscope
Vinegar eel "flash mob" caught under the microscope! Researchers were stunned when they measured the force of the roiling worm swarm.
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00:00 A single droplet of water rests under a microscope, but this tiny sea is far from calm.
00:06 Thousands of squiggly white worms known as nematodes, or more specifically, vinegar eels,
00:11 surge through the droplet, gathering at its center and running laps around its edges.
00:17 Scientists have discovered more than 25,000 species of nematodes living all over the world,
00:23 each of them with their own quirks.
00:25 And for the vinegar eels, that quirk is dancing.
00:29 Like birds or fish, vinegar eels travel in swarms.
00:32 When scientists watched these nematodes swim under the microscope, they saw the eels move
00:37 randomly around the droplet first, but after an hour, a strange order emerged.
00:42 The eels started swimming in synchronous, moving in the same direction at the same time,
00:46 and even oscillating their bodies back and forth with the same rhythm.
00:51 Scientists don't know how or why vinegar eels swim this way, but they know they're a force
00:55 to be reckoned with.
00:56 Once the nematodes started swimming in sync, they exerted a force on the droplet that could
01:01 move an object more than 100 times the weight of their bodies.
01:04 Now that is one funky flash mob.
01:09 This research was published January 10th in the journal Soft Matter.
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01:16 (upbeat music)