Tiny Worms Survive Shuttle Crash

John H. Doe writes "According to CNet, tiny worms kept in special aluminum canisters aboard the space shuttle Columbia (which broke apart in the atmosphere back in Feb. 1, 2003) survived their fall to earth. The small (about 1mm long) soil roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans was found alive in four or five of the recovered canisters, after an impact 2,295 times the force of Earth's gravity."

mirror

[madpiggy_dj]

mirror http://www.thebesttrek.net/forum/index.php?topic=3 48.0 [thebesttrek.net]

I could have sworn...

[Drakin]

Yeah, the story's been run before.

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/05/0 1/1134217&mode=thread&tid=134&tid=160 [slashdot.org]

Re:How hard did they fall?

[Khyron]

Seriously, this was my first thought reading this as well. Not only does that figure seem to completely ignore the likely terminal velocity of the canister, I'm betting it supposes an inelastic collision. I'm sorry, did the can of worms land on an extremely large plate of hardened titanium? No, it probably landed in dirt someplace...