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."

Comments

I don't care how efficient they are,

[loftwyr]

I'm still not going to ride a slime mold to work.

They did a similar experiment

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

wrong conclusion

[circletimessquare]

the proper conclusion is that japanese transportation engineers are no smarter than slime molds

must have been fun research

[Clover_Kicker]

The next study will involve rust monsters and gelatinous cubes.

A Eureka Moment...almost

[hyades1]

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.