She's alive!!!

[HighLordDave]

. . . plus more than you ever wanted to know about GameBanshee's favourite nematode.
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Worms found alive in shuttle wreckage (the full text of this article can be found here)


CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- Hundreds of worms from a science experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia have been found alive in the wreckage, NASA said Wednesday.

The worms, known as C. elegans, were found in debris in Texas several weeks ago. Technicians sorting through the debris at Kennedy Space Center in Florida didn't open the containers of worms and dead moss cells until this week.

<snip>

[biology lesson=on]The C. elegans are primitive organisms that share many biological characteristics of humans. In 1999, C. elegans became the first multicellular organism to have the sequencing of its genome completed.

C. elegans have two sexes: males and hermaphrodites, which are females that produce sperm. A hermaphrodite worm can self-fertilize for the first 300 or so eggs but later usually prefers to accept sperm from males to produce a larger number of offspring.[/biology lesson]

<snip>

[Ned Flanders]

read this last night. weird, I was going to post the same bit.

[C Elegans]

Survival of the fittest

I am however not going to comment about my reproduction cycle

[Minerva]

Originally posted by C Elegans
Survival of the fittest

I am however not going to comment about my reproduction cycle

So, are you male or hermaphrodites?

[C Elegans]

Originally posted by Minerva
So, are you male or hermaphrodites?

Certainly I am not male

[Tamerlane]

I gave a little chuckle when I read that the worms were alive.

Naturally my parents didn't have a single clue about what was so funny about the article.

[Gwalchmai]

Originally posted by C Elegans
Certainly I am not male

Figures. All the cute ones always turn out to be she-males, don't they? *shudder*