Slime Moulds in the News

Robot moved by a slime mould's fears A bright yellow slime mould that can grow to several metres in diameter has been put in charge of a scrabbling, six-legged robot. –The Physarum polycephalum slime, which naturally shies away from light, controls the robot's movement so that it too keeps out of light and seeks out dark places in which to hide itself.Klaus-Peter Zauner at the University of Southampton, UK, who developed the slime-controlled bot with colleagues from Kobe University in south-central Japan, says the idea is to find simpler ways to control a robot ﾕ s behaviour.

Robot The slime mould - pictured on the screen in the experimental set-up - causes a robot to naturally avoid the light (Image: Klaus-Peter Zauner)

A-mazing slime mold Physarum navigates a Maze A-mazing slime mold In 2000, a team of Japanese and Hungarian researchers, writing in the journal Nature,1 claimed to have found the slime mold Physarum polycephalum is capable of finding the shortest way through a maze. Pieces of the slime mould were enticed through a 30-square-centimetre (five-square-inch) maze by the prospect of food at the end of the puzzle. The researchers concluded that the creature was exhibiting a kind of primitive intelligence.

P. polycephalum in the maze