NewsPronto

 
Men's Weekly

.

USA Conversation

The Conversation USA

The Conversation USA

Why do scientists care about worms?

  • Written by Helen Robertson, Postdoctoral Scholar of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago
imageWhether in the wild or in the lab, worms have an interesting story to tell.Sinhyu/iStock via Getty Images

I traveled to a marine research station on a picturesque Swedish fjord many times over the four years I worked on my Ph.D. What brought me back again and again? Buried in the mud off the west coast of Sweden lives a small orangey brown worm,...

Read more: Why do scientists care about worms?

More Articles ...

  1. America's hidden world of handmade pornography
  2. Why we're so bad at counting the calories we eat, drink or burn
  3. Why the Virgin of Guadalupe is more than a religious icon to Catholics in Mexico
  4. Latinos are especially reluctant to get flu shots – how a small clinic in Indiana found ways to overcome that
  5. We discovered a 115,000-year-old iguana nest fossil in the Bahamas
  6. Kids want to learn more about mental illness and how to cope with parents who live with it
  7. Foreign policy is Biden's best bet for bipartisan action, experts say – but GOP is unlikely to join him on climate change
  8. Workers are looking for direction from management – and any map is better than no map
  9. Bitter battles between stinkbugs and carnivorous mice could hold clues for controlling human pain
  10. Fragments of energy – not waves or particles – may be the fundamental building blocks of the universe
  11. The Electoral College system isn't 'one person, one vote'
  12. Daily DIY sniff checks could catch many cases of COVID-19
  13. 4 ways to close the COVID-19 racial health gap
  14. Computer science jobs pay well and are growing fast. Why are they out of reach for so many of America's students?
  15. When can children get the COVID-19 vaccine? 5 questions parents are asking
  16. Can Joe Biden win the transition?
  17. In 'The Queen's Gambit' and beyond, chess holds up a mirror to life
  18. The iconic American inventor is still a white male – and that's an obstacle to race and gender inclusion
  19. Nigerians got their abusive SARS police force abolished – but elation soon turned to frustration
  20. The Taliban are megarich – here's where they get the money they use to wage war in Afghanistan
  21. How remote learning is making educational inequities worse
  22. Peatlands keep a lot of carbon out of Earth's atmosphere, but that could end with warming and development
  23. Genetic engineering transformed stem cells into working mini-livers that extended the life of mice with liver disease
  24. We scanned the DNA of 8,000 people to see how facial features are controlled by genes
  25. From permafrost microbes to survivor songbirds – research projects are also victims of COVID-19 pandemic
  26. Substack isn't a new model for journalism – it’s a very old one
  27. New electoral districts are coming – an old approach can show if they're fair
  28. Racism at the county level associated with increased COVID-19 cases and deaths
  29. How sensors monitor and measure our bodies and the world around us
  30. Donors grow more generous when they support nonprofits facing hostile environments abroad
  31. Brazil's president rejects COVID-19 vaccine, undermining a century of progress toward universal inoculation
  32. The Atlantic: The driving force behind ocean circulation and our taste for cod
  33. Why Biden will find it hard to undo Trump's costly 'America first' trade policy
  34. Intimate partner violence has increased during pandemic, emerging evidence suggests
  35. How do archaeologists know where to dig?
  36. I'm an astronomer and I think aliens may be out there – but UFO sightings aren't persuasive
  37. How Hanukkah came to be an annual White House celebration
  38. This DIY contact tracing app helps people exposed to COVID-19 remember who they met
  39. Wisconsin's not so white anymore – and in some rapidly diversifying cities like Kenosha there's fear and unrest
  40. As the pandemic rages, the US could use a little bit more 'samfundssind'
  41. How COVID-19 vaccines will get from the factory to your local pharmacy
  42. How to fight Holocaust denial in social media – with the evidence of what really happened
  43. Trump plan to revive the gallows, electric chair, gas chamber and firing squad recalls a troubled history
  44. What are emergency use authorizations, and do they guarantee that a vaccine or drug is safe?
  45. How TikTok is upending workplace social media policies – and giving us rebel nurses and dancing cops
  46. In a year of Black Lives Matter protests, Dutch wrestle (again) with the tradition of Black Pete
  47. Tiny treetop flowers foster incredible beetle biodiversity
  48. How a flu virus shut down the US economy in 1872 – by infecting horses
  49. What makes the world's biggest surfable waves?
  50. The chattering classes got the 'Hillbilly Elegy' book wrong – and they're getting the movie wrong, too