Every Day Is Special: worms

Showing posts with label worms. Show all posts

July 15 – Gummi Worm Day

Posted on July 15, 2014

What's five centimeters long, two different colors, and two different flavors—and shaped like a worm?

Not a lot of bi-colored worms show up in our food supply, so I'm pretty sure the only answer is Gummi Worms. Today is the day to buy a pack and use these crazy candies to make a creative dessert.

Usually, when people create a dessert featuring Gummi Worms, they think about the fact that worms live in dirt. Of course, the dessert version of dirt tends to be crumbled chocolate cookies (Oreos count!) or crumbled brownies. Some people go for the mud version of dirt and use chocolate pudding or mousse.

I haven't seen people using the idea of Gummi Worms as fishing bait or as a play on the “can of worms” idea. Another common image of a worm is a worm's head appearing out of an apple. I wonder how to do that with a Gummi Worm.... (thinking hard...)

Anyway, hopefully you can have fun with creating something “dirty” and “wormy” and delicious. If you need help with ideas, check out Food-dot-com.

You can do other fun stuff with Gummi Worms, too. For example, do an experiment to find out how many pennies a Gummi Worm can hold before it breaks. How far can a Gummi Worm stretch before it breaks?

Also, I've heard that Gummi Worms grow when held underwater. Try it...

Did you know...?

Gummi Bears were invented about 60 years Gummi Worms! A man named Hans Riegel, the founder of Haribo, invented the Gummi Bear and named it from the German word for rubber.

There are a LOT of different
Gummi candy shapes!

According to Wikipedia, other COMMON shapes for Gummi candy (aside from bears and worms) include bottles, frogs, hamburgers, sharks, toy soldiers, full-size rats, large human body parts such as hearts or feet or faces, and Smurfs.

OMG! Who has been making...
buying...EATING!!!
full-size Gummi Rats???

The only thing worse than full-size Gummi Rats is Road Kill Gummies. These were Gummi candy shaped as partly flattened squirrels, chickens, and snakes.

Ummm...what???

Thankfully, the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals complained about the Road Kill Gummies, and Kraft Foods decided to stop producing them.

Also on this date:

St. Swithin's Day

Mathematician Fibonacci's birthday

Physicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell's birthday

Painter Rembrandt van Rijn's birthday

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February 7 – Cordova Iceworm Festival

Posted on February 7, 2014

How would you like to be chosen Miss Iceworm?

Um....

Trust me, it's a thing! In Cordova, Alaska, the first full weekend of February is the Iceworm Festival, and one of the events is the crowning of Miss Iceworm. Other events include everything from an arts and crafts show and photography competition to a cook off and an ice cream feed. There are competitions in oyster shucking, ping pong, dodgeball, and cribbage; there is a parade, a variety show and a fireworks spectacular!

Cordova bills itself as Alaska's “hidden treasure.” It is a small city on the ocean (the bit of ocean called the Prince William Sound), near the mouth of the Copper River. It's a fishing town, but of course it wants to attract tourists, too. In May, when millions of migrating shorebirds stop near Cordova to rest and feed, Cordova hosts a Shorebird Festival; in the winter, the town fights off the winter blues by hosting the Iceworm Festival!

Some of the events at the festival seem particularly Alaskan. Instead of a “Polar Bear Plunge,” in which the challenge is to “just” jump into the icy ocean waters, Cordova locals have a Survival Suit Race. Locals race to the docks, hurry to don their survival gear, and then dive in and continue racing to a life raft. The Blessing of the Fleet, the purchasing of Shaving Permits from the Keystone Cops, and the Iceworm Tail Hunt are events that make me wonder: what goes on in Cordova this weekend?

And just what are ice worms?

There are a few species of annelid (segmented) worms that spend their entire lives in glacial ice. These ice worms were discovered in Alaska in the late 1800s, but they have since been found in glaciers in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon as well. Interestingly enough, no ice worms have been found elsewhere in the world, even though there are other glacial regions!

You have probably guessed that ice worms have very special adaptations that allow them to live in such a cold environment. Of course, this means that they can't live in a warmer place. At 5 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit), their cell membranes fall apart, and the worms seem to melt. And, trust me, 5 degrees C (41 degrees F) is NOT warm by human standards!

Ice worms may tunnel through the ice by secreting some sort of anti-freeze chemical, or they may just wriggle through tiny cracks in the ice. They eat snow algae, coming to the surface of glaciers every evening. They are what is known as “sun-avoiders,” however, and retreat underneath the ice before dawn.

Even though ice worms are small—several centimeters (about an inch) long—they can be numerous. A population count on a Washington glacier indicated more than seven billion worms on that glacier alone!

Also on this date: