Study Shows Worm Grunters Imitate Moles

Science_afficionado writes "In the southeastern US, fisherman have an unusual way to collect earthworms for bait. The practice is called worm grunting, fiddling, snoring, or charming. It involves pounding a wooden stake into the ground and rubbing the top of the stake with a long piece of steel to produce a grunting sound that causes earthworms to come to the surface where they can be easily collected for bait. A study published today in the open access journal PLoS ONE shows that the technique works because the worm grunters are unknowingly imitating the sounds created by burrowing moles. Full text of the paper is available at PLoS ONE."

Re:Not news for nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

Rubbing a stick in the ground to make five hundred earthworms crawl out over the space of half an hour must surely be news for nerds.

Simply stick a spade...

[thrill12]

into the ground and hit it a few times (softly) to get the same effect. This is old knowledge, so now suddenly a scientific paper comes out and makes this Nerd News ? Then I know a few more:
Next week in the headlines:
* water drains the other way if you're in Australia
* put a magnet near a needle and you can make a compass !
* your coffee will be warmer if you put in the milk *before* you walk to the door and return to drink it

Any more lessons ? Please add them to my post, I think we all have few.

Re:Not news for nerds

[weber]

Actually it is very much news for nerds, just not for computer nerds. There are other kinds of nerds, you know! We're a diverse, colorful and lovingly bunch.
(...insensitive clod...)

Re:Simply stick a spade...

[Sockatume]

You're right, there's nothing scientific about testing existing ideas to see if they're true or not. Or to see what the underlying reasons and mechanisms are.