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Live Worms Found in Columbia Wreckage

Posted by michael on from the now-we-just-need-some-tequila dept.

Scoria writes "CNN is reporting that hundreds of live worms, fourth or fifth generation descendents of the subjects of a scientific experiment conducted aboard Columbia, have been discovered amongst the shuttle wreckage. The worms, C. elegans , share many biological characteristics with humans and are the size of a pencil tip."

2 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. Size matters more than that by oliverthered · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When I was younger.... smaller and lighter I could easly jump out of a second story window onto the ground without causing myself any injury.

    Now I'm older, taller and fatter there's no way I'd jump out of a second story window, it's hurt too much.

    It's not too surprising that something small survived whilst the people died.

    --
    thank God the internet isn't a human right.
  2. Re:Too bad by SlashdotLemming · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But seriously, this goes a long way to prove the panspermia theory. Or atleast to disprove all the nay-sayers. If a pencil-tip-sized worm can survive that impact, then bacteria should be able to survive the impact of a comet.

    All this proves is that worms in a locker can survive a shuttle crash.
    That's the problem with all these conspiracy theories and wacky beliefs about the world. Someone looks at two statements, one of which is fact, and they conclude the other is fact, because it just seems like it might be true based on the first one. They then use their new 'fact' as a basis for proving other things, and away we go.