via infinity-imagined: City lights photographed from the International Space Station and Neurons imaged with fluorescence microscopy. Source images; Cities (1) (2) (3) (4) (5), Neurons (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) We can explore this at another level by remembering our old friend slime mold (see my previous slimy posts here), which give us reason to believe that some of the branching patterns and efficient pathways of connecting complex systems are sort of, well, inherent in nature. It’s equal parts “amazing” and “not at all surprising” to find them here in neurons and cities, no?
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via infinity-imagined: City lights photographed from the International Space Station and Neurons imaged with fluorescence microscopy. Source images; Cities (1) (2) (3) (4) (5), Neurons (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) We can explore this at another level by remembering our old friend slime mold (see my previous slimy posts here), which give us reason to believe that some of the branching patterns and efficient pathways of connecting complex systems are sort of, well, inherent in nature. It’s equal parts “amazing” and “not at all surprising” to find them here in neurons and cities, no?
Zoom Info
via infinity-imagined: City lights photographed from the International Space Station and Neurons imaged with fluorescence microscopy. Source images; Cities (1) (2) (3) (4) (5), Neurons (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) We can explore this at another level by remembering our old friend slime mold (see my previous slimy posts here), which give us reason to believe that some of the branching patterns and efficient pathways of connecting complex systems are sort of, well, inherent in nature. It’s equal parts “amazing” and “not at all surprising” to find them here in neurons and cities, no?
Zoom Info
via infinity-imagined: City lights photographed from the International Space Station and Neurons imaged with fluorescence microscopy. Source images; Cities (1) (2) (3) (4) (5), Neurons (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) We can explore this at another level by remembering our old friend slime mold (see my previous slimy posts here), which give us reason to believe that some of the branching patterns and efficient pathways of connecting complex systems are sort of, well, inherent in nature. It’s equal parts “amazing” and “not at all surprising” to find them here in neurons and cities, no?
Zoom Info
via infinity-imagined: City lights photographed from the International Space Station and Neurons imaged with fluorescence microscopy. Source images; Cities (1) (2) (3) (4) (5), Neurons (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) We can explore this at another level by remembering our old friend slime mold (see my previous slimy posts here), which give us reason to believe that some of the branching patterns and efficient pathways of connecting complex systems are sort of, well, inherent in nature. It’s equal parts “amazing” and “not at all surprising” to find them here in neurons and cities, no?
Zoom Info
via infinity-imagined: City lights photographed from the International Space Station and Neurons imaged with fluorescence microscopy. Source images; Cities (1) (2) (3) (4) (5), Neurons (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) We can explore this at another level by remembering our old friend slime mold (see my previous slimy posts here), which give us reason to believe that some of the branching patterns and efficient pathways of connecting complex systems are sort of, well, inherent in nature. It’s equal parts “amazing” and “not at all surprising” to find them here in neurons and cities, no?
Zoom Info
via infinity-imagined: City lights photographed from the International Space Station and Neurons imaged with fluorescence microscopy. Source images; Cities (1) (2) (3) (4) (5), Neurons (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) We can explore this at another level by remembering our old friend slime mold (see my previous slimy posts here), which give us reason to believe that some of the branching patterns and efficient pathways of connecting complex systems are sort of, well, inherent in nature. It’s equal parts “amazing” and “not at all surprising” to find them here in neurons and cities, no?
Zoom Info
via infinity-imagined: City lights photographed from the International Space Station and Neurons imaged with fluorescence microscopy. Source images; Cities (1) (2) (3) (4) (5), Neurons (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) We can explore this at another level by remembering our old friend slime mold (see my previous slimy posts here), which give us reason to believe that some of the branching patterns and efficient pathways of connecting complex systems are sort of, well, inherent in nature. It’s equal parts “amazing” and “not at all surprising” to find them here in neurons and cities, no?
Zoom Info
via infinity-imagined: City lights photographed from the International Space Station and Neurons imaged with fluorescence microscopy. Source images; Cities (1) (2) (3) (4) (5), Neurons (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) We can explore this at another level by remembering our old friend slime mold (see my previous slimy posts here), which give us reason to believe that some of the branching patterns and efficient pathways of connecting complex systems are sort of, well, inherent in nature. It’s equal parts “amazing” and “not at all surprising” to find them here in neurons and cities, no?
Zoom Info
via infinity-imagined: City lights photographed from the International Space Station and Neurons imaged with fluorescence microscopy. Source images; Cities (1) (2) (3) (4) (5), Neurons (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) We can explore this at another level by remembering our old friend slime mold (see my previous slimy posts here), which give us reason to believe that some of the branching patterns and efficient pathways of connecting complex systems are sort of, well, inherent in nature. It’s equal parts “amazing” and “not at all surprising” to find them here in neurons and cities, no?
Zoom Info

via infinity-imagined:

City lights photographed from the International Space Station and Neurons imaged with fluorescence microscopy.

Source images; Cities (1) (2) (3) (4) (5), Neurons (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

We can explore this at another level by remembering our old friend slime mold (see my previous slimy posts here), which give us reason to believe that some of the branching patterns and efficient pathways of connecting complex systems are sort of, well, inherent in nature.

It’s equal parts “amazing” and “not at all surprising” to find them here in neurons and cities, no?

Beyond their pretty remarkable ability to “think” and problem-solve, slime molds are just plain beautiful. John Bonner, a professor emeritus at Princeton, has been studying them for seventy years. He’s been fascinated by the ability of this “bag of amoebae encased in a thin slime sheath” to operate like a simple brain, despite its biological simplicity. He’s used the gooey little guys to further the study of evolution and development for over half a century, and some of the images he’s collected are stunning. The GIFs above are from this collection of half-century-old film clips captured by a young Bonner, showing the life cycle of a multi-cellular relative to the single-celled slime molds you’ve seen in my other posts today. Lastly, you absolutely do not want to miss this gorgeous new collection of close-up slime mold photos SciAm’s Alex Wild. Old and new, these little creatures are as beautiful in form as they are amazing in biology. Check my archive for today’s other slime mold posts!!
Zoom Info
Beyond their pretty remarkable ability to “think” and problem-solve, slime molds are just plain beautiful. John Bonner, a professor emeritus at Princeton, has been studying them for seventy years. He’s been fascinated by the ability of this “bag of amoebae encased in a thin slime sheath” to operate like a simple brain, despite its biological simplicity. He’s used the gooey little guys to further the study of evolution and development for over half a century, and some of the images he’s collected are stunning. The GIFs above are from this collection of half-century-old film clips captured by a young Bonner, showing the life cycle of a multi-cellular relative to the single-celled slime molds you’ve seen in my other posts today. Lastly, you absolutely do not want to miss this gorgeous new collection of close-up slime mold photos SciAm’s Alex Wild. Old and new, these little creatures are as beautiful in form as they are amazing in biology. Check my archive for today’s other slime mold posts!!
Zoom Info
Beyond their pretty remarkable ability to “think” and problem-solve, slime molds are just plain beautiful. John Bonner, a professor emeritus at Princeton, has been studying them for seventy years. He’s been fascinated by the ability of this “bag of amoebae encased in a thin slime sheath” to operate like a simple brain, despite its biological simplicity. He’s used the gooey little guys to further the study of evolution and development for over half a century, and some of the images he’s collected are stunning. The GIFs above are from this collection of half-century-old film clips captured by a young Bonner, showing the life cycle of a multi-cellular relative to the single-celled slime molds you’ve seen in my other posts today. Lastly, you absolutely do not want to miss this gorgeous new collection of close-up slime mold photos SciAm’s Alex Wild. Old and new, these little creatures are as beautiful in form as they are amazing in biology. Check my archive for today’s other slime mold posts!!
Zoom Info
Beyond their pretty remarkable ability to “think” and problem-solve, slime molds are just plain beautiful. John Bonner, a professor emeritus at Princeton, has been studying them for seventy years. He’s been fascinated by the ability of this “bag of amoebae encased in a thin slime sheath” to operate like a simple brain, despite its biological simplicity. He’s used the gooey little guys to further the study of evolution and development for over half a century, and some of the images he’s collected are stunning. The GIFs above are from this collection of half-century-old film clips captured by a young Bonner, showing the life cycle of a multi-cellular relative to the single-celled slime molds you’ve seen in my other posts today. Lastly, you absolutely do not want to miss this gorgeous new collection of close-up slime mold photos SciAm’s Alex Wild. Old and new, these little creatures are as beautiful in form as they are amazing in biology. Check my archive for today’s other slime mold posts!!
Zoom Info

Beyond their pretty remarkable ability to “think” and problem-solve, slime molds are just plain beautiful.

John Bonner, a professor emeritus at Princeton, has been studying them for seventy years. He’s been fascinated by the ability of this “bag of amoebae encased in a thin slime sheath” to operate like a simple brain, despite its biological simplicity. He’s used the gooey little guys to further the study of evolution and development for over half a century, and some of the images he’s collected are stunning.

The GIFs above are from this collection of half-century-old film clips captured by a young Bonner, showing the life cycle of a multi-cellular relative to the single-celled slime molds you’ve seen in my other posts today. Lastly, you absolutely do not want to miss this gorgeous new collection of close-up slime mold photos SciAm’s Alex Wild.

Old and new, these little creatures are as beautiful in form as they are amazing in biology.

Check my archive for today’s other slime mold posts!!

Earlier today we watched slime molds, those branching, banana-colored, single-celled webs of oozy weirdness, solve a maze and replicate the Tokyo rail system.

Does this change your view of what it means to be a thinker? Where does planning and awareness and “having more than one cell” enter the debate about smarts? Check out the video above and the accompanying article, and let me know what you think: How brainless slime molds redefine intelligence.

One more treat to come for our daily slime mold exploration…

Source: nature.com

Tokyo Slime Rail

Ok, so we’ve seen that a slime mold can solve a maze better than a toddler. But that’s basically as simple as finding your way from point A to point B without retracing your steps. Not impressed?

Let’s raise the stakes. Network design is a pretty complicated sort of problem, where a group of distributed points, like cities, need to be connected in the most efficient way. Highways, shipping routes, railways … they all depend on this kind of complex planning. Finding the best path between each point saves humans money and time.

What takes humans several years of civil engineering school to master is no problem at all for slime molds. First, oats (a food source) were laid out on a dish in the pattern of the cities that surround Tokyo.

The slime mold, acting as a single, branching cell, reaches out in all directions, probing and tasting like a blind, hungry octopus. It gradually lays down a vein between each point, sharing nutrients over the whole “supercell” plumbing network, and deletes the veins it doesn’t use. It has no ability to plan and no brain, but the result matches the human-designed Tokyo rail system almost perfectly!

Sharing resources and complex planning, out of a single-celled slime mold. Not bad, eh? Ed Yong wrote all of this up in great detail a while back, check it out.

Source: youtube.com

A-Maze-ing Slime Molds

Let’s explore some slime mold fun this afternoon!

These unique little communities of brightly-colored amoeba-like organisms are kind of a biological head-scratcher. They are so simple, just a bit of slime and a few cells, yet they exhibit traits usually reserved for much higher life forms: problem-solving, “memory” and self-sacrifice. 

Here’s a slime mold (Physarum polycephalum) solving a maze. It’s able to do this because in an effort to find the food at the middle of the maze, it leaves behind a bit of slime on dead ends it’s tried before. It eventually discovers the most efficient path to the food, through trial-and-error and a rudimentary form of memory. It does this on the first pass! I have met children who couldn’t even do that!

More to come on slime molds…

(via PhysarumMachines, here’s the original research on arXiv)

Source: youtube.com