11/12/2005

By Chris Newmarker

TRENTON, N.J.

Rutgers Camden University professor, Daniel Shain shows ice worms crawling on top of an ice cube, at his laboratory in Rutgers University, in Camden, N.J., Thursday, Nov. 11, 2005. NASA recently gave Daniel Shain, an associate professor of biology, a three-year, $214,206 grant to figure what makes the ice worms such survivors. The answer to such studies might show how life might survive on distant ice worlds such as Jupiter's moon Europa, as well as provide answers to more earthbound problems such as preserving transplant organs kept on ice. (AP Photo/Jose F. Moreno)


Normally fodder for anglers and early birds, worms are getting a tad more respect from a Rutgers-Camden biologist who's focusing on a species of hardy wigglers able to live in freezing temperatures, surviving without food for up to two years.

NASA recently gave Daniel Shain, an associate professor of biology, a three-year, $214,206 grant to figure what makes the ice worms such survivors. The answer to such studies might show how life might survive on distant ice worlds such as Jupiter's moon Europa, as well as provide answers to more earthbound problems such as preserving transplant organs kept on ice.

The threadlike, black Mesenchytraeus solifugus _ which feed on microorganisms as they crawl through tiny ice cracks in coastal mountain glaciers in Alaska, British Columbia and Washington state _ thrive at the freezing point of 32 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Shain.

Drop the temperature a few degrees and they freeze. Raise it a few degrees and their flesh starts to melt.

"If you put an earthworm or any other organism on ice, they wouldn't live very well. But with an ice worm, they come to life," Shain said.

The 40-year-old Shain, who has studied the worms for the past decade, says many people who live around the mountains in Alaska have never heard of the inch-long worms, or believe they are mythological creatures.

But get out on a glacier right after the sun goes down, and the surface of the ice turns gray as the worms come up to the surface.

"You can't miss them," Shain said. "They're millions of them."

During his research trips, Shain uses "a regular, old spoon" to scoop up thousands of the worms into a cooler, then duct tapes it shut and ships it back to Camden.

The biologist, who travels to Alaska about every other year, also has contacts in the region who make sure he gets a steady supply of worms for his experiments.

He says his most remarkable work has involved adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, a molecule that stores energy in the cells of living organisms. Most organisms produce less ATP when temperatures become colder.

But when Shain ground up ice worms and mixed them with an enzyme that lights up in response to ATP, he found the colder the worm, the more light.

Shain along with Brittany Morrison, a Rutgers-Camden graduate biology student have a hypothesis that a mechanism regulating ATP doesn't work in ice worms.

The next step is to breed bacteria where the same mechanism is turned off, to see if they are able to thrive at colder temperatures.

Shain said NASA is interested because conditions on the glaciers are very much like the conditions on some cold planets that scientists theorize have a chance of harboring life. Figuring out how ice worms live will give scientists a point of comparison if life is ever discovered on another icy world such as Europa.

When told about the research, Colleen Cavanaugh, a Harvard University biology professor who studies life thriving near scalding hot thermal vents on the ocean floor, said it was another great example of the ability of organisms to prosper in even the most unusual environments.

"It's fascinating because you're looking at the adaptations to these extreme environments that allowed these things to survive and diversify," she said.

Eric DeChaine, a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow who works with Cavanaugh at Harvard, first saw ice worms during his doctoral studies on species in mountain environments.

DeChaine estimates only about a handful of researchers across the country study the worms, but he says interest in ice worms has grown in recent years, with some experts envisioning potential applications for space travel and others seeking evidence of global warming.

"Worms have been these creatures that people think to put on their fishhook, but now they're receiving attention because they can live near thermal ocean vents or inside mountain glaciers," DeChaine said.