Worm Blobs From The Bowels Of The Earth

Short Wave

NPR

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 September 2022

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

In the toxic waters of Sulphur Cave in Steamboat Springs, Colo. lives blood-red worm blobs that have attracted scientific interest from around the world. We don special breathing gear and go into the cave with David Steinmann, the spelunking scientist who first documented the worms, along with a trio of science students from Georgia Tech, to collect worms and marvel at the unique crystals and cave formations (ever heard of snottites??) that earned Sulphur Cave a designation as a National Natural Landmark in 2021. Then we learn about how extremophiles like these worms are helping scientists search for new antibiotics, medicines, or in the case of the Georgia Tech team, models for worm blob robots that can explore uneven, dangerous terrain, like caves on other planets.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to shortwave from NPR.
0:04.4	So Emily, when I was a kid...
0:07.1	How old are we talking here?
0:08.9	We're talking around 10, 10, 11 as a wheelad.
0:12.6	And there was this cave near my house.
0:14.9	It's like this big hole that opens up in the ground, a stream slopes into it.
0:20.8	And at the bottom of the slope, we could see this ominous crack.
0:25.0	And then pass that nothing.
0:26.5	You can't see anything.
0:27.5	Just darkness.
0:28.5	And I was reading Lord of the Rings for the first time.
0:30.9	And it felt like the entrance to the cracks of doom in the corridor.
0:35.6	Especially because the stream that runs into the cave bubbles up from a spring a few feet
0:39.4	away and it's full of sulfur.
0:41.7	So it's steaming and the whole place just reeks of dragon breath.
0:47.2	Or, you know, rotten eggs to people who don't read too much fantasy.
0:52.0	But anyway, my friends and I, you know, our imaginations would run wild.
0:55.6	We would play like adventurers, Frodo and Samwise.
0:59.6	And we would go to this cave and just, you know, wanted to go in and explore and discover
1:05.6	all the treasures and the terrors that it held.
1:10.0	But we couldn't.
1:11.0	Was it the parents where they like you are forbidden, young man?
	...

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