Rembrandt painted with it. This worm survives on it. Say hello to orpiment. By Laura Baisas Published Aug 26, 2025 2:00 PM EDT Get the Popular Science daily ...

Bone-eating zombie worms vanished from Pacific canyons during a 10-year study, raising concerns that oxygen loss is altering the deep ocean.

Orpiment is a bright golden pigment adored by Renaissance painters. It also happens to be deeply toxic. Despite its toxicity, the substance is key to the survival of a particularly hardy species of ...

A deep sea worm that inhabits hydrothermal vents survives the high levels of toxic arsenic and sulfide in its environment by combining them in its cells to form a less hazardous mineral. Chaolun Li of ...

At the bottom of the ocean, where metal-rich hydrothermal vents exhale poison, a bright yellow worm has mastered an impossible art: turning lethal elements into armor. Meet Paralvinella hessleri, the ...

Worms that inhabit hydrothermal vents combine environmental arsenic and sulfide to form a nontoxic mineral to survive in a harsh environment. Unlike this vibrant worm, most other deep-sea denizens ...

A bright-yellow worm that lives in deep-sea hydrothermal vents is the first known animal to create orpiment, a brilliant but toxic mineral used by artists from antiquity until the nineteenth century.

A deep-sea worm that lives in hydrothermal vents is the first known animal to create orpiment, a toxic, arsenic-containing mineral that was used by artists for centuries A bright-yellow worm that ...

Image of the alvinellid worm, Paralvinella hessleri. A P. hessleri specimen with buccal tentacles extroverted, lateral view. Note that the animal has a bright yellow color A deep sea worm that ...

A bright-yellow worm that lives in deep-sea hydrothermal vents is the first known animal to create orpiment, a brilliant but toxic mineral used by artists from antiquity until the nineteenth century.