Follow

Slime molds are fascinating. They can live as single-celled organisms or work together as a colony that differentiates functions and exhibits learning behaviors without having anything like a brain. Training one slime mold and then allowing it to fuse with another transmits the training with the new slime mold.

, , ,

As John Tyler Bonner, a professor of ecology put it, slime molds are “no more than a bag of amoebae encased in a thin slime sheath, yet they manage to have various behaviors that are equal to those of animals who possess muscles and nerves with ganglia – that is, simple brains.”

, ,

Show thread

@johnnylogic I love slime mould! A few people in my old lab studied them, they were computer scientists. They can do awesome things like solve mazes and design efficient networks

@johnnylogic The slime mould that is, not the computer scientists. Computer scientists suck at solving mazes and designing efficient networks lol

Sign in to participate in the conversation
Qoto Mastodon

QOTO: Question Others to Teach Ourselves
An inclusive, Academic Freedom, instance
All cultures welcome.
Hate speech and harassment strictly forbidden.