Move over, starling murmurations. There’s a slimier, squirmier collective behavior in town. It's a living, twisting tower of worms.

Everybody, meet the wormuration 🪱🪱

Latest paper by Daniela Perez, Serena Ding and team @uni-konstanz.de

Paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

youtube.com/shorts/F8QVc...

Apply & come join our team in Amsterdam ⬇️

Join us in Amsterdam as a #postdoc to explore the inner workings of #mycorrhizal #fungi using cutting-edge #fluorescence #microcopy, #robotics, and #machinelearning in Amsterdam.

📃 See advert: amolf.nl/wp-content/u...

📅 Application Deadline: 15 May, 2025

Video by Rachael Cargill & Joe Togneri

Huge thanks to @kellykrause.bsky.social of @nature.com for this wonderful creation, @cbisot.bsky.social & Loreto Oyarte Gálvez for animating data, @cosmosheldrake.bsky.social for the perfect underground soundtrack, and @tobykiers.bsky.social and @spun.earth for orchestrating this all with Kelly.

+Humbled by how beautifully this animated version of this week’s @nature.com cover captures two major themes of our paper – mycorrhizal fungi and the ‘wave nature of life’.

Excited(!) we got fungi front and center in the news cycle this week through this @nytimes.com piece – no mean feat at any moment, but especially during these turbulent times. Kudos to all the scientists/artists that contributed compelling visuals (individual credits at the end of the NYT piece):

Fungi made Earth’s land liveable by building networks that released nutrients locked in primordial rock and supplied those nutrients to plant roots

https://go.nature.com/41lvtBg

Many of these stellar scientists are now on Bluesky:
@rachaelcargill.bsky.social
@thecrobe.bsky.social
@anilevetu.bsky.social
@vkokkoris.bsky.social
@tobykiers.bsky.social
Check the paper for the full list of amazing researchers that contributed to this study.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

+A truly interdisciplinary effort spanning biophysics, robotics, fluid dynamics, ecology & evolution, and a wonderful collaboration of 28 authors across several labs (AMOLF, VU Amsterdam, SPUN, Princeton, ENS Lyon, ESPCI Paris). Led by first authors Loreto Oyarte Gálvez and @cbisot.bsky.social .

+Our paper now out in @nature.com. We designed and built at AMOLF a robot that maps & tracks fungal networks as they trade nutrients with plants. We discovered how fungi build and operate hyper-efficient 'supply chains' for underground ecosystems.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...