Just below your feet, there lurks a beast that is poised to take over the world. The slimy, slithering, slippery little heathen may be inching its way to the surface at this very moment on a bloodthirsty mission to overrun the human race. It’s menacing; it’s terrifying; it’s practically untouchable; it’s — a worm.
Consider the popular zombie apocalypse scenario: reanimated corpses that can only be killed via destruction of the brain. Now imagine those zombies could re-grow their brains and remember that they were trying to kill you once it grew back.
That’s exactly what the planarian flatworm is capable of, except its post-regrowth brain is devoted to less violent tasks than murder — for now.
The planarian is a non-parasitic, water dwelling flatworm that, while simple and cute at first glance, has an incredible superpower that places it in the perfect position to take over the world. According to a report by The Verge, when the planarian’s head is cut off, it regenerates along with the worm’s previous memories. The worst part is, scientists have no idea how this happens.
Researchers at Tufts University first discovered this with an experiment that trained the worms to ignore their instincts and eat food that was placed in an open, brightly lit area. Once the worms’ heads were removed and regenerated, they initially reverted back to instinctual behavior, but took significantly less coaxing to ignore their primal urges and eat the food again.
They do have a few ideas about how this might happen. One theory is that the worm’s nervous system may be able to store portions of memories, or may be responsible for regenerating the brain to be an exact copy of the previous one.
It gets worse — planarians that are cut completely in half will regenerate into two entirely separate individual worms, whether the cut was lengthwise or crosswise.
Can you say, “zombie worm army?”
The researchers at Tufts are less concerned with a worm uprising and more focused on using the worms’ regenerative properties to learn about how memories work, but I’m pretty close to boarding up my apartment and preparing for a nuclear winter.
These scientists might think they have this under control, but sooner or later, the worms will start focusing their efforts on splitting and regenerating without the need of a human blade. It’s only a matter of time.
The real question here is: “how does one kill what can not be killed?” Think about it — you can stomp on it, squish it, burn it up if you want, but how do we know the worm couldn’t regenerate from a tiny piece left behind? Unlikely? Maybe. Petrifying? Without a doubt.
The existence of these worms certainly raises red flags, questions and eyebrows. Are there other worms that can regenerate in this fashion? Other species altogether? Will the worms grow teeth and venom glands soon? How do we keep evil hands away from these worms so the secret of regeneration doesn’t become accessible to criminals and wannabe super villains? On that note, does Sarah Palin know about this yet?
Don’t let the worms’ harmless appearance and demeanor fool you. These little slices of evil are up to no good. Starting tomorrow, I’m going to begin stocking up on canned food and bottled water — readers, I suggest you do the same.
When the planarian worm apocalypse comes, will you be ready?
Connor Tarter is a 21-year-old communication studies senior from Dallas, Texas.