by Dave Barry
The Boston Globe Magazine
Mutant constipated worms. It's a topic we all THINK about a lot; but what do
we really KNOW about it?
The answer, I am pleased to report, is: more every day, thanks to the
efforts of a professor named Jim Thomas in the Genetics Department of the
University of Washington in Seattle. Thomas has an entire laboratory devoted to
studying irregularity in worms. He is the world's leading authority on this
topic. I say this with no small amount of pride, because he graduated from my
alma mater, Haverford College (motto: "Small, But Weird").
I learned of Thomas' work through one of his alert graduate students, Creg
Darby, who sent me a lengthy scientific paper that Thomas had written. In an
accompanying letter, Creg wrote: "Notice that Jim was not merely content
to describe how worms poop. Oh no. We geneticists are a twisted lot, because we
LOVE mutants, so Jim went and zapped worms with nasty chemicals to make MUTANT
WORMS THAT ARE CONSTIPATED. Really, it's all there in the paper. I know you
can't understand most of it, so I have highlighted the word
'constipated.'"
Creg, who is not afraid to use capitalization for desired emphasis, added
that "JIM'S RESEARCH IS FUNDED BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT! HE IS SPENDING TENS
OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS OF TAXPAYERS' MONEY TO MAKE CONSTIPATED
WORMS!!!!!!!!"
Let me state that, as a taxpayer, I would much rather see my tax money spent
on mutant constipated worms than on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Not that
there is such a huge difference.
But as a journalist, I feel a fundamental responsibility to you, the public,
to check out stories that involve the use of your tax money for scientific
projects in cities that have good microbrewery beer. So I went to Seattle.
Thomas' office is located in the university's Health Sciences Building,
which is very scientific. I say this because of the bulletin boards. Back in
the '60s, when I was in college, our bulletin boards were covered with
announcements of festive social events such as dances, concerts and the violent
overthrow of the U.S. government. Whereas the first bulletin board I saw in the
Health Sciences Building had the following announcement posted on it: "A
KERATIN 14 MUTATIONAL HOT SPOT FOR EPIDERMOLYSIS BULLOSA
SIMPLEX-DOWLING-MEARA."
I wasn't sure that it was medically safe for a layperson to even LOOK at
these words, so I scurried on up to Jim Thomas' laboratory. It was cluttered
with scientific items such as petri dishes, beakers, test tubes, radioactivity
warnings, deadly chemicals and graduate students eating their lunch. I did not
immediately see any worms; Professor Thomas explained that the ones he studies,
called Caenorhabditis elegans, are only 1 millimeter long. (To give yourself an
idea how long that is, hold your thumb and forefinger 1 millimeter apart.)
A LOT of scientists study these worms. They (the scientists) even have their
own magazine, and they regularly gather at events such as the West Coast Worm
Meeting. One news report begins: "Almost all worm people in Japan
assembled in Sendai on 29th November ..."
Jim Thomas loves his worms.
"We think they are the coolest organisms in the world," he told
me, and his corps of graduate students nodded in proud agreement."
What makes these worms especially cool for constipation studies is (1) You
can see right through them, and (2) They poop every 45 seconds. I know this
because I saw them myself. First Thomas showed me a videotape of one of them in
action.
"OK, watch this," he said, as the worm contracted itself.
"He's getting ready ..."
"POOP!" said Thomas, thrusting his fist forward in a
football-fan-like gesture of triumph.
Next Thomas led me to a microscope, where I saw some live worm action.
Basically what these worms do all the time is crawl around in dishes full of
food, eating, pooping and having sex. It is guy heaven. All they need is tiny
TVs with remote controls.
The male worms, by the way, are total sex fiends. They try to do it with
everything they bump into, including other males. Sometimes they try to mate
with their OWN HEADS (a graduate student told me this is called
"wanking").
I also looked at some mutant constipated worms, who were bloated and definitely
not as lively. They reminded me of people in laxative commercials.
PHARMACIST WORM: You don't look so good today, Ed. Is it ... irregularity?
CUSTOMER WORM: You said it, Mr. Feemley! I haven't pooped in over 90
seconds!
I asked Jim Thomas if there was any possibility that his research would
ever, in a zillion years, have any practical benefits for humans. He couldn't
think of any offhand, but he allowed that it might conceivably be possible.
That is good enough for me. I'm glad that we're funding this research. In
fact, I would strongly support spending more money in this area, as well as any
scientific endeavor that has the potential to benefit mankind. And here I am
thinking of the microbreweries.