Exposure to worm infections in the womb may protect a newborn infant from developing eczema, a study funded by the Wellcome Trust suggests. A large trial in Uganda showed that treating a pregnant woman for worm infections increased her child’s chanc…
The previously unknown species of ribbon worm discovered in Kosterhavet National Park in 2007 has now been scientifically named using a new method. Pseudomicrura afzelii, a form of nemertean or ribbon worm, has been described and registered by r…
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 18, 2011 — Physicists and bioengineers have developed an optical instrument allowing them to control the behavior of a worm just by shining a tightly focused beam of light at individual neurons inside the organism.
The pion…
Researchers are using inexpensive components from ordinary liquid crystal display (LCD) projectors to control the brain and muscles of tiny organisms, including freely moving worms. Red, green and blue lights from a projector activate light-sensi…
RENO, Nev. — It’s just a worm, a tiny soil-dwelling nematode worm — but the implications are big for biomedicine and circadian biology as shown in a recent study authored by University of Nevada, Reno researcher Alexander van der Linden. The art…
Why do serious diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s mainly hit us in middle age or later? The links between aging and age-related diseases have proved elusive. In studies of the powerfully informative roundworm, C. elegans, UCSF scientists have discovered that a class of molecules found in the worms and in people can both prolong life in the worm and prevent the harmful accumulation of abnormal proteins that cause a debilitating Huntington’s-like disease. The finding appears to be the first evidence in an animal of a link between aging and age-related disease.