the.com/worm
the planet's most underestimated engineer, quietly eating the world and pooping out gardens
means A long, soft-bodied, limbless creature that burrows through soil, plus a sprawling family of slithery things and metaphors — from parasites to malicious computer code to the squirming feeling of doubt.
from From Old English 'wyrm,' which once meant far more than the earthworm — it covered serpents, dragons, and any creeping menace, which is why old dragons in myth are still called 'wyrms.' It descends from Proto-Germanic '*wurmiz' and is likely a cousin of Latin 'vermis' (source of 'vermin' and 'vermicelli,' literally 'little worms'). Over the centuries the word shrank from fearsome dragon to humble dirt-dweller, then crawled into computing in the late 20th century to name self-replicating code that wriggles through networks.
- no lungs
- breathes entirely through its moist skin
- hearts plural
- has five paired aortic arches doing heart-work
- darwin obsessed
- his final book was all about worms
- regrowth limits
- cut one and you rarely get two
- soil makers
- turns dead matter into fertile castings daily
caenorhabditis elegans — 302 neurons studied since 1974, first animal with complete connectome mapped
lumbricus terrestis — common earthworm, improves soil in gardens worldwide, segments visible to naked eye
taenia solium — pork tapeworm parasite, infects millions in developing countries, can reach 10 meters long