Worm Watch Lab Talk

More Info Please!

  • RedTrev by RedTrev

    I would love to have more info on this site. For example:

    What is the medium they are moving on/through? Aexbrown referred to it as a "bacterial garden", but that doesn't mean that much to me.

    What is the domestic arrangement? It seems to be one worm per garden - about 15 worm lengths in diameter?

    A anatomical diagram of the worms would help us understand what we were looking at. Plus some of their life history - how quickly do they hatch, how fast do they grow and how long is their lifespan.

    And perhaps some pictures of the lab where this investigation is taking place.

    This is by far my favourite Zooniverse project to participate in and some back story would only increase my enthusiasm.

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  • RedTrev by RedTrev

    Decided to Google the worm details - a wealth of information here:


    http://www.wormatlas.org/ver1/handbook/anatomyintro/anatomyintro.htm

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  • aexbrown by aexbrown scientist

    Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting some more general-interest information about C. elegans on the Worm Watch Lab blog, so stay tuned for that. The address is:
    http://blog.wormwatchlab.org/

    There are lots of great public resources with information on worms. The wikipedia article is good:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caenorhabditis_elegans

    In addition to all the info at wormatlas.org, I would recommend playing with the Open Worm browser to see the anatomy:
    http://browser.openworm.org/

    There's also lots of information available at http://wormbook.org but it's pitched at a scientific audience and so may be more technical than what some people want.

    The worms that you're seeing in the videos are crawling on an agar surface in a 3 cm petri dish filled with an agar gel. Agar is useful because the gel is hydrated so the worms don't dry out and it's also transparent so we can image the worms easily. There's a spot of bacteria (an E. coli strain called OP50) in the middle. That's what they eat so they spend most of their time crawling around on that, but they will also occasionally leave the food.

    Glad to hear you're enjoying the project!

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  • RedTrev by RedTrev in response to aexbrown's comment.

    Love the Worm Browser!

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