I chop up babies...Worm babies that is!

These past few months have given me many stress because my cocoons just weren't hatching. I basically walked around lab all day with this face...

Actually I was really bored at the eye doctor, not stressing about baby worms. I am sexy, I know.

The only babies I saw around were these guys...

I have a holy crusade against cockroaches...NONE SHALL PASS

Which I also murdered...and NOT in the name of science...But because they are a blight upon this earth that must be destroyed! If I could create a roach genocide...I would totally do it.

In addition to earthworms, I am also a roach serial killer.

And then, as I was down in the basement getting random science crap out of the stockroom, I decided to check on my worms which are now housed in a sweet temperature controlled unit and not a refrigerator. And low and behold...BABIES! And not the weird premature babies I got before, but fully formed and functioning earthworm babies!

Since my babies are hermaphrodites I picked unisex names...Meet Jamie and Jesse

Sufficed to say I quickly did a dance of joy...then preceded to butcher them into small pieces so I could put them in plastic and slice 'em up. I now will have data from the largest and smallest worms, which is kind of needed when you are trying to see how size affects how worms function. Anyhoo I am now a happy Jess. This New Year may suck less after all :)

My sporting my ultra sexy Happy New Year hat.

Ever wonder what a worm fetus looks like? (Im SO going to worm hell..)

So in my neverending quest to figure out why my baby worms look weird, I have come to the hypothesis that they may have hatched 'prematurely' since most worm babies emerge better developed. I'm guessing that if this is true it could be because the fridge was too cold for the babies and they didn't grow enough...Or they are alien babies...who knows.

How did I test this hypothesis? By performing a worm abortion (the politically correct term in science is SACRIFICED... like to a hethen god or something...hey Zeus want some worms?) on a cocoon... I know I am a terrible person.

Eenie meenie minie moe...

I wonder if my personal spot in hell will be something like I have to eat worm casts for eternity or try to escape a giant worm like the ones in Dune... Well apparently I have a guilty conscience because I dreamt I had crazy lab bred mutant worms that ended up parasitizing me... I need to get out more.


Anyways here is a pic of an earthworm embryo that I found when I cut open the cocoon. It actually was moving but it was really hard to take these pics with my iPhone through a microscope let alone a video.

No, its not an alien...or is it...? AM I AN ASTROBIOLOGIST??

This is my scientific proof that invertebrates look cool 

It does kind of look like the hatchlings I got in that its a short, tubby, not well segmented or pigmented thingy. You be the judge! Peer review me! 

Pic of my weird underdeveloped hatchling.

Your favorite worm torturer,

The 'Dirty' Scientist

Baby worms... WTF. Plus David Attenborough and the giant Australian earthworm!

Hi all,

So I just finished some histology on baby worms and all I have to say is...WTF. Their innards don't look like the adults at all! See my previous post for the comparison!

Here is the cross-section of a baby worm, I think the dark green patches are bundles of muscle

Here is a sagittal earthworm section (a worm cut in 2 along its long axis).. The bristly end is where its mouth is. Weird, huh?

 I think the little bundles I am seeing are muscle, but there is this weird green goo inside them as well. I now have to scour through old Russian and German tomes from the 1700s to see if anyone did baby earthworm histology. No luck so far. Why do you have to make my life so complicated baby worms? Now I will murder you all...seriously.

On a lighter note, I found a video of David Attenborough showing the giant Australian earthworm! The gurgle sounds remind me of a bad bowel movement...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO4lkv-jLRs

Birth Announcement! (No, not me)

So before I tell you more about histology, I have a very important announcement... My worms had babies! I found 5 of them altogether in the past two weeks. I had been finding cocoons for a while now but they take 3 MONTHS to develop and hatch and I was worried I was somehow killing the cocoons. Yes, I thought I was capable of killing cocoons that had evolved to be even more resistant to the enviornment than worms themselves. I'm just that good.

At first I wondered how popcorn kernels got in my worm bin... then I realized they were cocoons. Good thing I didn't eat them!

I was hoping they'd hatch by my birthday, but instead they waited a week. Don't they know I want my gifts ON my birthday, even if it's the gift of life? Stupid brainless inverts... Anyways, I opened my worm bin the other day and was doing my typical aerate soil/ cocoon scavenger hunt when I saw what looked like a tiny yellow mealworm...

I found even more and managed to capture a video of one moving with my iphone. Here is the vid:

I also took a video of a baby next to an adult for epic contrast!

This is the first organism I have ever taken care of that hasn't had a mass dieoff and has instead reproduced! And I only check on them once a week! I'm telling you, if you can make a career working with these guys it's totally awesome.

Your new mother,

The 'Dirty' Scientist