The Worm is the Spice?

From: "iDRMRSR" <idrmrsr@subgenius.com>
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Date: Thu, Jul 29, 2004 6:58 PM
Message-ID: <SdWdnWfjm_qKHJTcRVn-hg@giganews.com>

May Shai-Hulud clear your path:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/07/29/whale.eatingworms.ap/index.html

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Subject: Re: The Worm is the Spice?
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgeniusNOSPUM.com>

"Vrijenhoek, of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss
Landing, California, said the worms, ranging from 1-inch to 2
1/2-inches long, have colorful, feathery plumes that serve as gills and
green "roots" that work their way into the bones of dead whales.
Bacteria living in the worms digest the fats and oils in the
whalebone."

I got me a "bone" that worm can eat, at least until I get my prairie
squid back from the vet.

"The worms found eating the whale bones were females.

"Initially we were puzzled why every worm was a female," Vrijenhoek
said in a telephone interview. He said Rouse took some worms to his
laboratory for study and discovered tiny male worms living inside the
females.

"There were as many as 50 to 100 males within each female, Vrijenhoek
said.

"The males still contained bits of yolk, as if they had never developed
past their larval stage, but they also contained large amounts of
sperm."

Um, I take that back.

But wait, there's hope! These creatures are related to what are
prophesied to be "Bob's" Last Customers and Lovers:

"They have no mouth, no guts, no obvious segments like all worms are
supposed to have," Vrijenhoek said. They looked a lot like little
miniature versions" of the strange worms discovered living around
hydrothermal vents in the oceans. These vents are cracks in the ocean
floor where very hot, mineral-rich water bubbles out from the earth's
crust.

"So the team extracted DNA from the new worms and discovered they were
indeed related to the giant vent worms. The vent worms have colonies of
bacteria allowing them to live off sulfides released from the vents,
while the new worms have bacteria that digest fats from bones."

Following X-Day, or a nuclear war, these heat vent worms may well be
the last of the multicellular creatures alive on Earth Farm One -- the
ones that will eventually evolve into the next tool-using,
nuke-building land biped.

So, Be Kind to Your No-Stomached Friends

--

PRABOB

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Subject: Re: The Worm is the Spice?
From: nenslo <nenslo@yahoox.com>

When interviewed on NPR, the gentleman revealed this was only one of
five or seven types of worm obtained from the same source, and that
another type was DNA checked and found not to be related to ANYTHING.
Really. "What will we find on the next whale?" he laughed.

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Original file name: The Worm is the Spice? - converted on Saturday, 25 September 2004, 02:05