Reversing the direction of the contraction waves enables the worm to back up.
These muscles are also used by some of the larger flatworms to pass waves of muscular contraction along the body, enabling the worm to crawl in a snail-like fashion.
The muscles of each segment contract just after those of the segment in front, so that waves of contraction pass backward along the body, enabling the worm to move slowly forward.
But C. elegans can enter a dormant "dauer" stage, which enables the worm to survive long periods of adverse conditions, so some people had thought that genetic control of aging might only occur in worms.
In the hot-house tubeworm, new cells persist, enabling the worm to grow fast, but as these long-lasting cells age, they seem to shorten the giant tubeworm's lifespan, she adds.
The increased fat content enables the worm to survive conditions of low food supply by utilizing the stored fat as main energy source.
Although sulphide binding has not been demonstrated for the ring-Hb, it has an extremely high affinity for oxygen [107], [110], [111] that enables the worm to take up and transport large amounts of oxygen while maintaining low internal dissolved O2.
Overall, our results demonstrate that robust activity of the mir-35 -42 family microRNAs not only is essential for embryonic development across a range of temperatures but also enables the worm to subsequently develop full reproductive capacity.
This enabled the worms' lifespan to increase by an astounding average of 44percentt.
The medication paralyzes the worm's nervous system, causing the worm to die.
