These worms move faster when you give them less space

The unusual locomotion could one day help with robot design

California blackworms

The California blackworm (Lumbriculus variegatus) displays the unusual ability to move faster in tight spaces than in open ones.

Photographers Ltd/Alamy

For humans, running across an open field is usually a faster way to cross it than crawling through an underground tunnel. But things are different for tiny worms. They squeeze through a confined space much faster than they wriggle across a wide open one, researchers report July 28 in Physical Review Letters.