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 TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Normally fodder for anglers and early birds, worms are getting a tad more respect from a Rutgers-Camden biologist who's focusing on a species of hardy wigglers able to live in freezing temperatures, surviving without food for up to two years.
NASA recently gave Daniel Shain, an associate professor of biology, a three-year, $214,206 grant to figure what makes the ice worms such survivors. The answer to such studies might show how life might survive on distant ice worlds such as Jupiter's moon Europa, as well as provide answers to more earthbound problems such as preserving transplant organs kept on ice.
The threadlike, black Mesenchytraeus solifugus — which feed on microorganisms as they crawl through tiny ice cracks in coastal mountain glaciers in Alaska, British Columbia and Washington state — thrive at the freezing point of 32 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Shain.
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