What can slime molds offer computing?

Slime molds may not have brains, but that isn't preventing some computer scientists from investigating them for their potential as novel, unconventional computers. A slime mold consists of a single cell containing millions ...

Shrinking blob speeds traveling salesman on his way

(Phys.org) —What is the shortest route that a traveling salesman must take to visit a number of specified cities in a tour, stopping at each city once and only once before returning to the starting point? The most accurate ...

Researchers brew up organics on ice

(Phys.org)—Would you like icy organics with that? Maybe not in your coffee, but researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., are creating concoctions of organics, or carbon-bearing molecules, on ...

Japan scientists hope slime holds intelligence key

A brainless, primeval organism able to navigate a maze might help Japanese scientists devise the ideal transport network design. Not bad for a mono-cellular being that lives on rotting leaves.

In amoeba world, cheating doesn't pay

(PhysOrg.com) -- Cheaters may prosper in the short term, but over time they seem doomed to fail, at least in the microscopic world of amoebas where natural selection favors the noble.

Programmed cell death may be 1.8 billion years old

Apoptosis, often referred to as programmed cell death, is a fundamental process crucial to the growth and development of multicellular organisms. This process, or a primordial form of it, is also observed in single-celled ...

'Swarmalators' better envision synchronized microbots

Imagine a world with precision medicine, where a swarm of microrobots delivers a payload of medicine directly to ailing cells. Or one where aerial or marine drones can collectively survey an area while exchanging minimal ...

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