Worms can entangle themselves into a single, giant knot, only to quickly unravel themselves from the tightly wound mess within milliseconds. Now, math shows how they do it.
Researchers studied California blackworms (Lumbriculus variegatus) — thin worms that can grow to be 4 inches (10 centimeters) in length — in the lab, watching as the worms intertwined by the thousands. Even though it took the worms minutes to form into a ball-shaped blob akin to a snarled tangle of Christmas lights, they could untangle from the jumble in the blink of an eye when threatened, according to a study published April 28 in the journal Science.
