Meta Nematode
		In the world of Java Database Connectivity, we use the term metadata to describe data about data. On the last weekend of April, 2006, I took a weekend Horticulture class 32-HORT-513, Plant Pathology and Disease Management.  The three-credit hour class met for one weekend, three days, at the North Gate Lodge at Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum.  Pathology experts Dr. Peggy Sellars of Purdue University, and Julie Beale of the University of Kentucky, visited Cincinnati to teach this class. We discussed nematodes - a plant parasite that has a worm-like, multi-cellular structure.  Until this class, I had never heard of a nematode before.  We took a look at several nematodes under the microscope.  I looked at my first nematode and said, "That's neat.  I see the little nematodes swimming around inside the big nematode."   What I thought was a normal nematode was apparently an uncommon site.  The professors came over to my microscope and were suprised at what they saw.  Indeed, nematodes are occasionally parasites to other nematodes, and that's what I was viewing - a nematode living inside a nematode, which was living inside plant matter.  Does that make this a meta-nematode? I learned several Horticulture classes ago to always bring a camera to a Horticulture class.  Professor Beale told me something else I did not know - that I could use my digital camera in the context of the microscope.  So I snapped some cool pictures, which you can view below. Unfortunately, not all stories end happily in the world of science.  As my classmates lined up to see the meta-nematode, the organisms could no longer take the heat of the lamp, and the pressure of the microscope.  They soon perished.