May 01, 2003
SCIENCE: Survivors
There were actually survivors from the space shuttle Columbia disaster: worms used in a science experiment on the shuttle. I wonder if the fact of the worms' survival of the crash is itself scientifically noteworthy.
Probably not. If only a single worm had survived, it had time to produce several generations (with at least 300 offspring each generation). Not many conclusions can be drawn from a sample of one. The most likely explanation is that the tube they were in didn't get as much heat as the rest of the canister.