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Slime Mold Could Lead To Better Tech
FiReaNGeL writes to tell us that recent observation of slime mold could eventually lead the way to improved tech like better computer and communications networks. "This revelation comes after a team of Japanese and British researchers observed that the slime mold connected itself to scattered food sources in a design that was nearly identical to Tokyo's rail system. Atsushi Tero from Hokkaido University in Japan, along with colleagues elsewhere in Japan and the United Kingdom, placed oat flakes on a wet surface in locations that corresponded to the cities surrounding Tokyo, and allowed the Physarum polycephalum mold to grow outwards from the center. They watched the slime mold self-organize, spread out, and form a network that was comparable in efficiency, reliability, and cost to the real-world infrastructure of Tokyo's train network."
I'm still not going to ride a slime mold to work.
But after adding the oat flakes they pissed all over the experiment. This time the mold organized itself just like the New York subway system.
the proper conclusion is that japanese transportation engineers are no smarter than slime molds
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Dude. It's a slime mold, not a banana slug.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I knew there was a reason I was growing so much of it in my fridge...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I, for one, welcome our new slime overlords!
A slime mold killed my kitten.
@
natural systems(ants are the other one that gets mentioned a lot) have developed some quite efficient approaches to various problems.
Do they have a good solution for lawyers? I ask because we were talking about slime molds...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I would imagine that if the slime mold were forced to deal with such problems and it was large enough to do so, it would just eat them. Which actually is not a bad solution. :)
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
My, what a yummy slime mold!
The next study will involve rust monsters and gelatinous cubes.
I thought for a second we might finally have a really good way to model the complex, ever-deepening relationship that's grown up between North American politicians and their corporate masters. Then I realized there's some things even a slime mold won't do.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Yes, and that's how they are going to fund the new, cheaper train network. Selling Virgin Mary cheese sandwiches, Nun buns, and Jesus-burgers (Jeezburgers).
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Maybe now they'll find an efficient solution to the Salesman problem.
They already have, it's called bukkake.
That sounds like a good poll:
-Natalie Portman
-Chuck Norris
-Cmdr Taco
etc.
it is LITERALLY creepy ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Sadly, in study after study, the Virgin Mary has been found to be remarkably inefficient, particularly when compared to medieval saints and or numerous Hindu gods.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I can rent out my bathroom ceiling to an engineering research firm?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
And in a surprising, yet possibly related discovery, by Austrian and American scientists, Japanese civil engineers were found growing around the edges of a particularly damp bathroom. The research was funded by the MBTA, with a grant from the Department of Homeland Security.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
So now only to find an organism which likes to visit every node on the map, and yet tries to omit already visited spots. A colony-like species preferably, to have large number of individual for statistical analysis...
One that hath name thou can not otter
The Wikipedia entry for the slime mold species in question indicates that the organism actually does have some sort of primitive intelligence - it could, for example, solve mazes, and learn the pattern of a regularly reoccurring period of cold conditions (reacting appropriately). I see the stuff growing in my garden now and then... the fact that a patch of slime exhibits intelligent behavior is, I don't know, kind of weird.
I guess that means there is still hope for neural networks and AI.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds