Script – Slime Mold

This pulsating Slime Mold Comes in Peace

https://www.pbs.org/video/deep-look-slime-mold/

AMY: On these rotting tree trunks, something is alive. They can stand upright and produce spores. But
they’re not fungi or plants. When they’re hungry, they spread across the forest, chasing food. But
they’re not animals. They’re slime molds. A slime mold exists at the boundary between liquid and solid.
Each one is like one big cell. And it moves in a very strange way. See how it pulses? A little bit forward,
a little bit back, spreading and searching for bacteria or fungi to eat.

But hold on!

Can Slime Mould Solve Mazes? | Earth Lab

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyzT5b0tNtk

Narrator: At Oxford University in England Dr. Mark Frikar is one of a team of botanists and computer
scientists studying a form of slime mold called Phycerium Polycephalum. For years slime molds have
fascinated scientists with their ability to navigate the quickest route through a maze to get at some
food. But scientists started to wonder if the slime mold could do more than just perform clever tricks.
Here, Mark is recreating an experiment he worked on with colleagues at Tokyo University. A blob of
slime mold is surrounded with a pattern of oat flakes an irresistible treat for the slime mold. What
happens next is recorded by a time-lapse camera

Dr Frikar: So, the slime mold starts as this blob in the middle and then it's going to spread out and
colonize the whole of the dish trying to find all of those oat flakes that we positioned earlier on; so,
connect each of those food resources. But some of those links would disappear and some of them
would be strengthened.

Narrator: What the slime mold has done is truly remarkable.

Dr Frikar: The way we set out those oat flakes was not entirely random. The central blob is supposed to
represent Tokyo. And if we positioned all of the oat flakes on the major cities around Tokyo. So what
we're now looking at is not just the slime mold exploring a random distribution of oat flakes; it's
actually trying to map out the region around Tokyo to see how the slime mold would connect all of
those cities to compare against the way humans have connected it with their rail network.

Narrator: When you compare the local Tokyo rail system and the network that the slime molds come
up with, the two designs are remarkably similar. In just a few hours the slime mold has done what
skilled engineers took years to achieve. It has found the most efficient way to link together multiple
locations - every bit as effective as the well-organized Tokyo rail system

Dr Frikar: The slime mold doesn't have a brain or any way of calculating this but has managed to
produce a network with very similar properties.