Word: wormed
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...corporate system with blind spots. Sure enough, seven top officials at software firm Finmatica are now under investigation for alleged market rigging and obstruction; founder Pierluigi Crudele faced his first round of questioning last Friday. He took the hint: no victory sign. It Ain't No Slow Worm MyDoom became the fastest-spreading computer virus ever, generating 30% of e-mail traffic across more than 200 countries. The virus is estimated to have cost the global economy more than $25 billion...
...CHANGES Don't tell Nemo's dad, but if the female half of a pair of clown fish dies, the widower usually responds by turning into a female. In one species of marine worm, when two shes meet, the smaller becomes a he (but since males grow faster, they are likely to swap roles again). When too many male slipper limpets surround a female, the males change sex--then it's their turn...
...heave his manhood--and his genes--like a tiny torpedo into the female. Once implanted, the male organ serves as a built-in sperm bank. Similarly, the male anglerfish burrows into the belly of its much bigger mate and becomes a permanent, parasitic testicle. The female green spoon worm inhales the tiny male, who then resides in the androecium ("little man house"), a nook in the reproductive tract from which he fertilizes eggs...
CANNIBALS Love hurts--and in some species, it kills. For the praying mantis and the Australian redback spider, it's boy meets girl, girl eats boy. But not until boy passes along his genes to the next generation. In the marine bristle worm, however, it's boy eats girl. The male guards the fertilized eggs until they hatch, and since the female dies after mating anyway, the male sometimes has her for supper. For species that have little chance of mating again, a parent offering itself as a last meal can be a bit of insurance that the offspring will...
Parents who believe their 4year-olds get enough encouragement to become fire fighters or U.S. Presidents may want to try a new pair of hardcovers that could inspire the next Samuel Pepys. Diary of a Worm, by Doreen Cronin, with illustrations by Harry Bliss, and Diary of a Wombat, by Jackie French, with illustrations by Bruce Whatley, are aimed at kids 4 to 8. In the former, the titular worm goes to school, gets punished for eating his homework and taunts his sister because "her face will always look just like her rear end." The wombat, a bearlike Australian native...