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May 7, 2023

Ball-shaped blob of California black worms

Two-hundred or so tiny California black worms tangle together in a ball-shaped blob. These tangled assemblies occur over the span of a few minutes, yet they can untangle in mere milliseconds.

[Research supported by U.S. National Science Foundation grants MCB 1817334, CMMI 2218382 and IOS 1941933.]

Learn more in the Georgia Tech news release Unraveling the mathematics behind wiggly worm knots. (Date of image: April 2023; date originally posted to NSF Multimedia Gallery: May 7, 2023)

Credit: Georgia Institute of Technology


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