| NASA has provided a 3-year grant to Daniel Shane of | | | | wants a bucket of those worms that can live on ice. |
| Rutgers-Camden to study ice worms. He finds a | | | | If NASA does not find life on Europa, they want to |
| glacier, waits for the sun to go down, and then | | | | dumb a bucket of those worms there and watch |
| scoops ice worms into a cooler which he closes with | | | | them evolve into the Box Turtle. |
| duct tape and zaps off to Camden. An assistant, | | | | I'm going to tell you the truth now, so BUCK UP! |
| Brittany Morrison, helps him with the work. | | | | When I was teaching engineering at Iowa State |
| Brittany is particularly interested in the energy | | | | University (which nearly got clobbered by a tornado |
| molecule that the black ice worms have. | | | | the other day--nothing unusual) a friend of mine, Dr. |
| Things are different with ice worms. Regular worms | | | | Wayne Rowley, who was and may still be a |
| don't like cold weather. Ice worms like the | | | | professor in the Entomology Department, asked if I |
| temperature to be exactly at freezing. They squirm | | | | would help him with a project. |
| and squirm and squirm. | | | | This is what the project was: sticking the tip of a |
| NASA saw Dan's work and became very interested. | | | | tiny iron-constantan thermocouple into the thorax of |
| One NASA scientist said, "Europa!" You can find what | | | | a house fly or a mosquito and measuring the |
| you need to know about Europa at: | | | | temperature increase of the insect as it flew and |
| When the scientist said, "Europa!" everybody caught | | | | flew and flew. |
| on. The Director said, "Send that man Daniel Shane | | | | Dr. Rowley had a clever little device that he pinned |
| and his graduate assistant a ton of money right | | | | the insect to. A fly or mosquito could fly in circles |
| away!" | | | | until its energy molecules went dry. All of that energy |
| And that's what they did. | | | | expenditure heated the cute little creatures up. Here |
| The reason that NASA has a need for threadlike | | | | are the results: |
| worm Mesenchytraeus Solifugas information is that | | | | House Fly (Musca domestica Linnaeus)--Temperature |
| people at NASA are saying things: | | | | Increase 4F degrees |
| "Dr. Ronald Greeley, an Arizona State University | | | | Northern House Mosquito (Culex pipiens |
| geologist and Galileo imaging team member, said | | | | Linnaeus)--Temperature Increase 1.5F degrees |
| (that) the ice rafts reveal that Europa had, and may | | | | At the end of the test, Dr. Rowley would squish the |
| still have, a very thin ice crust covering either liquid | | | | critters so that he could measure how much of the |
| water or slush. | | | | energy molecule remained after the flight. He soon |
| "'We're intrigued by these blocks of ice, similar to | | | | figured out how much energy it takes to fly and fly |
| those seen on Earth's polar seas during springtime | | | | and fly. |
| thaws," Greeley said. "The size and geometry of | | | | I'm sure that Brittany will be squeezing the energy |
| these features lead us to believe there was a thin icy | | | | molecules out of those Mesenchytraeus Solifugas to |
| layer covering water or slushy ice, and that some | | | | see how much energy it takes to squirm, squirm, |
| motion caused these crustal plates to break up. | | | | squirm. |
| "'These rafts appear to be floating and may, in fact, | | | | I say, "Good Luck!" to Daniel Shane of |
| be comparable to icebergs here on Earth," said | | | | Rutgers-Camden as he buckets those thin black ice |
| another Galileo imaging team member, Dr. Michael | | | | worms at night off those glaciers (he says there are |
| Carr, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. "The | | | | zillions of iceworms; they are easy to catch). |
| puzzle is what causes the rafts to rotate. The | | | | I say, "Good Luck!" to Graduate Assistant Brittany |
| implication is that they are being churned by | | | | Morrison as she squishes the threadlike ice worm |
| convection.'" (see | | | | Mesenchytraeus Solifugas. |
| In a secret NASA memo provided to me by my | | | | Good Luck to NASA too! |
| White House correspondent, Jose Caliente, NASA | | | | Copyright©John T. Jones, Ph.D. |