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.

Transcript

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.

01:12 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:16 (upbeat music)