\n<\/p>\n
October 23, 2025<\/p>\n
3 min read<\/p>\n
Watch These Parasitic Worms Use Static Electricity as a Tractor Beam<\/p>\n
These Worms Use Static Electricity like a Sci-Fi Tractor Beam<\/p>\n
By Cody Cottier edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier<\/span><\/p>\n Flows of tracer particles show the attractive force of a positively-charged fruit fly. Parasitic nematodes use this static charge to leap onto the insects.<\/p>\n Victor Ortega Jimenez\/University of California, Berkeley<\/p>\n At first glance, it\u2019s a wonder that parasitic nematodes exist at all. To reproduce, these minuscule creatures\u2014roughly the size of a pinpoint\u2014must leap 25 times their body length and land on a flying insect as it zooms overhead. Given that wind, gravity and air resistance all stand in the way of a bull\u2019s-eye, the worms\u2019 chances seem poor. But new research shows there\u2019s another force working to their advantage: static electricity.<\/p>\n At human scale, static electricity is little more than a curiosity. You walk across the carpet, friction transfers electrons from the floor to your socks, and you receive a mild zap when the electrical imbalance rights itself by discharging to the first metal doorknob you touch\u2014ouch. But similar processes hold tremendous sway in the teensy world of insects. According to a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, the mere beating of insect wings generates enough positive charge to pull an oppositely charged, airborne nematode inexorably toward its unlucky host. The worms seem to have outsourced their accuracy to these electrical tractor beams. \u201cThey don\u2019t need to be precise\u201d when they jump, says senior study author V\u00edctor Ortega-Jim\u00e9nez, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, \u201cjust close enough to be attracted.\u201d<\/p>\n Download the video<\/p>\n A nematode leaps and floats on the wind.<\/p>\n Victor Ortega Jimenez\/University of California, Berkeley<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n This is the latest in a line of experiments that, over the past decade, have illuminated the exotic physics that govern small animals\u2019 lives. In 2013 researchers reported that bees can sense electrical fields around flowers and use that information to guide their foraging decisions. Around the same time, Ortega-Jim\u00e9nez discovered that spiderwebs deform when positively charged insects fly by, bulging out to ensnare them. Most recently, in 2023, a group of British researchers found that ticks are passively attracted to furry hosts, whose fluffy coats accumulate electrons.<\/p>\n The 2023 study was led by Sam England, now a postdoc investigating sensory ecology at Berlin\u2019s Natural History Museum. Given the precedent in ticks, he wasn\u2019t surprised to learn from the new study that nematodes have also harnessed electricity for parasitic purposes. But whereas ticks sit around waiting, worms \u201cactively input force into the attraction\u201d by jumping, he notes, becoming agents of their own grisly destiny. England was also impressed by how Ortega-Jim\u00e9nez and his colleagues integrated the effects of other forces, such as air resistance, with those of static electricity in the new research. The work \u201chelps us better connect all of these new and exciting discoveries in electrostatic ecology with the wider physics of ecological interactions,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Download the video<\/p>\n A nematode winds up for its leap.<\/p>\n Victor Ortega Jimenez\/University of California, Berkeley<\/p>\n To test the effect of static charge on airborne nematodes, Ortega-Jim\u00e9nez tethered living fruit flies to a live copper wire and adjusted the voltage between 100 and 700 volts, comparable to what insects would generate in the wild. (Because they weren\u2019t flying, they didn\u2019t generate their own charge.) Then he unleashed the worms, letting them fling themselves at their electrified prey. The trend was clear: the higher a fly\u2019s electric potential, the more likely nematodes were to attach to it. With zero static, they almost always missed; at higher voltages, they latched on more than half the time.<\/p>\n Download the video<\/p>\n Nematode launches and is pulled toward a charged fruit fly.<\/p>\n Victor Ortega Jimenez\/University of California, Berkeley<\/p>\n But coaxing nematodes is tricky and time-consuming, so Ortega-Jim\u00e9nez collaborated with Ranjiangshang Ran, a postdoc studying fluid mechanics at Emory University, who ran computer simulations of thousands more jump trajectories. When the virtual voltage reached as high as 800 V, the digital worms were unstoppable: in simulations with a gentle, buoyant breeze to keep them aloft long enough for static to take over, their overall success rate soared to more than 70 percent, including launches that were in exactly the wrong direction.<\/p>\n For nematodes, a jump is no small thing. If they don\u2019t stick the landing, these aerial hunters can quickly dry out, starve or become the hunted themselves. So their entire survival strategy depends on static electricity\u2014without its reassuring pull, they\u2019d likely never have left the ground. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t make sense for them to evolve this jumping mechanism without the presence of electrostatics,\u201d Ran says. Other animals may not be so fully reliant on this force. But as the list of electrically sensitive species grows, England believes we\u2019ll find that electrostatic effects \u201cplay countless roles\u201d throughout the natural world. \u201cTheir importance to ecosystems as a whole,\u201d he says, \u201chas probably been historically quite underestimated.\u201d<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" October 23, 2025 3 min read Watch These Parasitic Worms Use Static Electricity as a Tractor Beam These Worms Use Static Electricity like a Sci-Fi Tractor Beam By Cody Cottier edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier Flows of tracer particles show the attractive force of a positively-charged fruit fly. Parasitic nematodes use this static charge to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[2236,7643,5575,6562,17684,17683,17682],"class_list":{"0":"post-30026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-electricity","9":"tag-helps","10":"tag-insects","11":"tag-leap","12":"tag-nematodes","13":"tag-parasitic","14":"tag-static"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
It\u2019s Time to Stand Up for Science<\/h2>\n