So, I’m reading this article, Way, Way Too Much Information by Frank Bures in Poets & Writers (May/June 2008) that includes the following:
According to a 2003 study by the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2002 human beings created five exabytes of data — or thirty-seven thousand times the amount of information stored in the Library of Congress.
Just last year the International Data Corporation released a study that estimated global data creation at 161 exabytes in 2006 (picture twelve stacks of copies of War and Peace, piled from here to the sun), and predicted that by 2010 the number will reach 988 exabytes. Also in 2006, 1.1 billion people were using the Internet regularly, checking approximately 1.6 billion e-mail accounts. And even as Americans continue to watch an average of eight hours and eleven minutes of television each week, time spent online rose 24 percent from 2006 to 2007, according to a study by the online market research firm Compete, Inc.
Awesome! The piece begins, with this:
Back in the early 1990s — the age of pagers and dial-up modems — I read an essay that changed my life. In “Thinking About Earthworms,” author David Quammen described the concept of the global mind. Philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (who dubbed it the “noosphere,” meaning an atmosphere of thought) considered this collective consciousness “wonderful,” but Quammen urged his readers to resist its pull. He advised us to spend some time in our own minds, to turn off our televisions and think about things no one else was thinking about — earthworms, for example.
So I did. By happenstance, I’ve had earthworms on my mind ever since I read children’s book writer Andrea Beaty answer the question “Tell us about your pets” with this:
Imagine a picture of fish floating upside down with little X’s on their eyes. That pretty much sums up the pets I’ve had as an adult.
As a kid, though, I had lots of pets without X’s on their eyes. I had collies, cats, parakeets, box turtles, and even a box of earthworms …
I had never thought of them as something with which I could have a master/pet relationship.
Next, of course, everybody has heard about the worm census, for example in Wriggle up and be counted in Britain’s first census of earthworms by Alastair Jamieson in the Telegraph.co.uk (Nov 26, 2008):
During the census, due to take place in the spring, volunteers will be sent free worm-watching packs.
These will contain a chart allowing them to identify 13 of the most common worms by colour, size, shape and pattern of rings. More sophisticated identification software will be available on the project’s website.
Then, there are worms for sport. Surely one of the most brutal things ever done to living creatures is the threading from head to almost-end of the living earthworm onto a fishhook. Done every day by little children and adults alike. Or, there is this, from Dr. Jesse, B.A . (Nov 20, 2008) in the Middlebury College news:
If you want to call yourself an athlete, but don’t want to deal with physical contact, sweating, or heavy breathing, I think I have found your sport. You need only three accessories – a big stick, a piece of metal, and fondness for all things slippery. In a competitive sport known as “worm grunting,” found in Florida and other southern states, an “athlete” sees how many earthworms he or she can pluck from the ground in a limited amount of time, the record firmly standing today at 511 worms in 30 minutes.
Practical uses for worms include this from It’s a dirty business, but San Jose’s Worm Dude is wiggling his way to a small fortune by Linda Goldston in the Mercury News (Nov 21, 2008):
“All your old bank statements and credit card statements — the ultimate way to make sure no one ever sees them after they’re shredded is to compost them,” he said.
That’s where people like the Worm Dude come in.
There are 2,700 types of worms, and somebody has to figure out which ones work best for what.
Bar none, in Gach’s mind at least, the best worms for composting are Red Wigglers, “the work horses” of the composting heaps that get their start in horse and cow manure. They cost $25 a pound. The Alabama Jumpers are so good at busting up clay soil that Gach sells a thousand of them for $89.
Then there are genuine things to be concerned about (of poetic justice, if you like) where worms are bringing our toxic waste back into our own foods (because many animals eat worms). From Earthworms Found to Contain Chemicals From Households and Animal Manure in SciencDaily (Feb 27, 2008):
Scientists found 28 AWIs in biosolids being applied at a soybean field for the first time and 20 AWIs in earthworms from the same field. Similar results were found for the field where swine manure was applied. Several compounds were detected in earthworms collected both from the biosolids- and manure-applied fields, including phenol (disinfectant), tributylphosphate (antifoaming agent and flame retardant), benzophenone (fixative), trimethoprim (antibiotic), and the synthetic fragrances galaxolide, and tonalide. Detergent metabolites and the disinfectant triclosan were found in earthworms from the biosolids-applied field, but not the manure-applied field.
Then, of course, what you’ve been all been waiting for, research into the earthworm’s sexual behaviour. From Worms Triple Sperm Transfer When Paternity Is at Risk in ScienceDaily (May 12, 2008):
Hermaphrodites, organisms that have both female and male reproductive organs, such as earthworms, are denied the right to choose their partner. However, a study by researchers at the University of Vigo has shown that worms are capable of telling whether another worm is a virgin or not, and triple the volume of sperm transferred during copulation if they detect a fertilisation competition risk.
… Worm courting can last up to an hour during which time the organisms secrete large amounts of mucus and press against each other with short, repetitive rubbing actions for subsequent exchange of sperm. If there is no fertilisation competition, worms are prudent in how much sperm they release, even waiting to mate with high-quality partners. “Worms can control copulation time or, alternatively, can have mechanisms which prevent all their sperm being released in a single mating event”, stress the authors.
The results of the study conclude that the volume of sperm donated to worms that are not virgins has been more variable than that transferred to virgin partners. In this respect, researchers estimated that the volume transferred to larger size partners which had previously copulated was five times greater than that transferred to virgin worms.
I could not make any sense of the Wikipedia section on earthworm reproduction. You’ll have to read it yourself. I sort of, kind of get this sentence, but the rest is just too darn sophisticated for me… :
The mating pair overlap front ends ventrally and each exchanges sperm with the other.
Way, way too much information. Which, if I can remember back to when I began this opus, is what thinking about earthworms was supposed to save me from. It’s no use.
-Julie
