jtotheizzoe:

Glow in the Dark Soldiers and a Civil War Mystery

At the Battle of Shiloh, some wounded soldiers waited days in the chilly rain for medical help. When soldiers usually waited that long, they were prone to deadly infections that doctors at the time couldn’t do anything about, much less understand the cause.

Some of them noticed that their wounds were glowing at night. Were they hallucinating?And those with glowing wounds had better survival rates. 140 years later someone figured out why.

Soil-dwelling worms like the one above are filled with bacteria that they use to eat and protect food they find in the soil. The luminescent bacteria inside the nematodes fight off other bacteria, and the worm and bacteria both get a tasty meal all to themselves.

The soil of the Shiloh battlefield was full of these worms and bacteria, and when they got into the soldier’s wounds they created a glowing, antiseptic worm bandage. 

(via Mental Floss image via Nikon’s Small World)

we love Mental Floss! just got my new issue in the mail today!