Diet of worms?
The phrase 鈥渄iet of worms鈥� intrigues people (if it intrigues them at all) in various ways. For historians, it can trigger arguments about a that happened in the city of Worms, in Germany in the year 1521. For nutritionists, the phrase can describe the work of scientists who are considering whether all of today鈥檚 8 billion or so humans could, if need be, subsist on a diet of mainly earthworms.
Henry Miller, James Mulhall, Lou Aino Pfau, Rachel Palm and David Denkenberger, whom Feedback regards as the all-star team of the nutritional-diet-of-worms community, recently feasted on a mass of data. Postprandially, intellectually speaking, they produced a study called 鈥溾�� It appears in the journal Biomass.
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The five analysed four techniques for efficiently fishing, so to speak, for earthworms: 鈥渄igging and sorting, vermifuge application, worm grunting, and electroshocking鈥�.
They asked the 鈥渃an鈥� (of worms) question: Can the worms gathered by these methods feed all of us humans, given the constraints of 鈥渟calability, climate-related barriers to foraging, and pre-consumption processing requirements鈥�? Their answer, in a word: no.
Their answer in 48 words: 鈥淭he authors are not aware of any studies of the human health impacts of consuming a diet rich in foraged earthworms. However, in the authors鈥� opinion, there is reasonable evidence that such a diet could be harmful and so should not be recommended unless starvation is the alternative.鈥�
Diets of worms
Miller, Mulhall, Pfau, Palm and Denkenberger are but the most recent front-runners in a long parade of scientists drawn to investigate diets of worms.
Many others have focused on the diets of the worms themselves.
Charles Darwin attained some measure of his fame for the 1881 book . Nearly a century later, Kristian Fauchald and Peter Jumars鈥檚 鈥溾�� occupied 92 pages of the Oceanography and Marine Biology Annual Review.
Fauchald and Jumars included a conversation-stopper of a sentence that is worth memorising and spouting if you want to worm your way into the spotlight at a party: 鈥淎lciopids are holoplanktonic animals with muscular, eversible pharynges.鈥�
Other scientists studied what can happen when one eats worms, especially if one isn鈥檛 a human.
In 2002, Mary Silcox and Mark Teaford examined the teeth of some habitual worm-eaters. They wrote up their observations, for the Journal of Mammalogy, under the title 鈥溾��.
鈥淲e compared microwear from shearing facets of lower molars from Parascalops breweri (the hairy-tailed mole) and Scapanus orarius (the coast mole) with that from other small mammal species including a tenrec, a hedgehog, 3 primates, and 2 bats.鈥�
Some of the mole tooth wear patterns, they write, can be 鈥減lausibly explained by the interaction between teeth and soil from the inside and outside of earthworms鈥�.
Silcox and Teaford鈥檚 mole teeth research would take on new significance if and when 鈥� despite the warning given by Miller et al. 鈥� the peoples of Earth opt for a mostly earthworms dietary regimen.
The tall and short of it
News about height requirements for certain courses at Vietnam National University鈥檚 school of management and business (HSB) has Feedback wondering.
reported on 2 July that 鈥渇emale students must be at least 1.58 meters tall and male students at least 1.65 meters to be considered for admission this year鈥�. The reasoning here: 鈥渢he school aims to train future leaders and excellent managers鈥� and 鈥渉eight is a decisive factor, especially when it comes to leadership and self-confidence鈥�.
That news report says that after public outcry, 鈥淗SB adjusted its admission criteria鈥� so that 鈥渢he rule now applies only to one course, Management and Security鈥�.
What schools or other institutions in the science, medical or tech world have managed to secure strict height prohibitions for students or employees? If you know of one, please send documentation to Feedback with the subject line 鈥淏ig/Small Careers鈥�. Some job requirements sensibly specify that applicants be physically able to use some particular job-related equipment. Don鈥檛 send those. Feedback craves examples in which numbers, not needs, rule the day.
Toilet humour
Inspired by Feedback鈥檚 collection of abandoned organisational slogans, Ken Taylor takes note of a slogan about things that were abandoned.
鈥淚 live in a very rural part of [the] UK 鈥� Cumbria. There are lots of isolated properties that are not linked to the sewerage network, so rely on septic tanks. These have to be emptied from time to time. I saw one such tanker going about its business. The slogan on the side said 鈥榊esterday鈥檚 meals on wheels鈥�. Nothing more to add鈥︹��
Marc Abrahams created the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony and聽co-founded聽the magazine Annals of Improbable Research. Earlier, he worked on unusual ways to use computers. His website is聽.
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