Once Over Lightly

FINALLY, comes word of the world's weirdest worm, a worm who lives a life that would make any alky turn green, blue, and pink with envy. This little fellow, who is only one-sixteenth of a millimeter long, belongs to a class of worm called nematodes. It seems that the teeny A AA--short for his ponderous name, Aphelenchus Avenae--possesses the remarkable ability to manufacture and then consume his own alcohol. Living In the soil, the AA leads a normal sort of wormy-type life until the oxygen supply falls, whereupon his internal chemistry changes and his little bitty body fills with alcohol. He becomes dormant until the oxygen returns to oxidize the alcohol and restore the AA to normal life. Although his usual life span is only twenty-eight clays, these alcoholic interludes of suspended animation can extend it to a year--and that, you gotta admit, is a switch!