Our results show that mutants can be uniquely distinguished based on burrowing capacity, which is sometimes difficult to discern from 2D crawling locomotion and thrashing assays. As shown in Table S1, the muscle mutants studied in Sec. II.D-i could not be differentiated based on just one phenotypic assay, suggesting that subtle genetic defects might be difficult to detect by existing locomotory assays. The fact that burrowing distinguishes all the muscle mutants studied indicates its capacity to detect subtle defects in neuromuscular function, reflecting a good dynamic range. Wen, J. Y. et al. Mutations that prevent associative learning in C. elegans. Behavioral neuroscience 111, 354 (1997).

Baba, M. et al. Aggregation of alpha-synuclein in Lewy bodies of sporadic Parkinson’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies. The American journal of pathology 152, 879 (1998). Bilbao, A., Patel, A. K., Rahman, M., Vanapalli, S. A. & Blawzdziewicz, J. Roll maneuvers are essential for active reorientation of Caenorhabditis elegans in 3D media. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201706754 (2018). Krajniak, J., Hao, Y., Mak, H. Y. & Lu, H. CLIP–continuous live imaging platform for direct observation of C. elegans physiological processes. Lab on a Chip 13, 2963–2971 (2013).

Finally – to add further confusion! – there is another term often used in conjunction with vegan nail polish. ‘Non-toxic’ nail varnishes are sometimes combined with vegan nail polishes, but they are not the same. Non-toxic nail polish is made without using any strong chemicals traditionally used in lacquers. This means they are less harsh to apply to the nail but again does not mean they are vegan or cruelty-free. What else do you need for a Vegan Manicure?

Restif, C. et al. CeleST: computer vision software for quantitative analysis of C. elegans swim behavior reveals novel features of locomotion. PLoS Comput Biol 10, e1003702 (2014). Our results show that Pluronic gel as a medium for C. elegans burrowing offers several unique advantages including ease of manipulation of animals, easy adjustment of assay conditions to modulate burrowing performance, and the capacity to run assay conditions in parallel in multi-well plates. In this section, we harnessed these capabilities to demonstrate that burrowing can be used in diverse applications. None of these demonstrative applications and the results thereof have been shown by prior burrowing studies 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Since our intent is to demonstrate the power of the assay platform we designed, we consider our results in each of these applications as laying the foundation for future in-depth investigations. Mutants with muscle structural defects are deficient in burrowing Previous studies show that the sol-gel transition temperature decreases with increasing Pluronic concentration 23, 31. For example, it has been reported that at 19% w/v the sol-gel transition occurs at 24 °C, whereas at 30% w/v, the sol-gel transition occurs at 12 °C 23. To identify the optimal concentration range, our criteria were: (i) the sol-gel transition must occur below room temperature; (ii) the liquid should not be too viscous to handle below the sol-gel transition because Pluronic solution needs to be transferred in liquid phase to the well plates; (iii) the handling temperature should not be far below room temperature (otherwise the gel takes too long to equilibrate to room temperature). Considering these factors, the useful PF-127 concentration range to test was between 24 to 30% w/v. For transferring the solution in liquid phase, we chose 10–14 °C, temperatures right below the sol-gel transition for this concentration range 23. Our initial trials showed that the second layer gels in less than 5 minutes under these conditions. Vetigel isn’t intended to replace a surgeon’s technique, but it is designed to stop bleeding where pressure or other methods are ineffective or impractical.Even though burrowing of nematodes in soil-like environments has been previously studied 49, 50, 51, burrowing has only recently been used for evaluation of neuromuscular health in C. elegans 16, 18, 19, 22, 52. These recent investigations employed agar as a medium for burrowing. Here, we have shown that the biocompatible and optically transparent Pluronic gel offers an alternative for burrowing studies with several advantages including ease of manipulation of animals, flexibility in changing assay conditions to modulate burrowing performance, parallel evaluation of assay conditions or different strains in multi-well plates, and easy recovery of animals for follow-up analysis. Feltham, D., Chaplain, M., Young, I. & Crawford, J. A mathematical analysis of a minimal model of nematode migration in soil. Journal of Biological Systems 10, 15–32 (2002). Gentle and effective to use on cuts, scrapes, post-operative wounds and much more, our Colloidal Silver MAGIC gel and spray can really aid rapid healing and fight off infection and is a must-have item for your furry friends. Culetto, E. & Sattelle, D. B. A role for Caenorhabditis elegans in understanding the function and interactions of human disease genes. Human Molecular Genetics 9, 869–877 (2000). Hart, A. C. & Chao, M. Y. From odors to behaviors in Caenorhabditis elegans. The neurobiology of olfaction (2010).