Bees? Great. Ants? Hit or miss. Slime mold amoebas? Fail. Though nature offers excellent design inspirations in some information technology systems, in other systems, it can bomb.
Plants & Animals
Feb 19, 2018
2
150
Foraging abilities of the amoeboid slime mold Physarum polycephalum may be improved by "noise" in the form of intermittent light exposure, according to a study published March 29, 2017, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 29, 2017
0
8
It isn't an animal, a plant, or a fungus. The slime mold (Physarum polycephalum) is a strange, creeping, bloblike organism made up of one giant cell. Though it has no brain, it can learn from experience, as biologists at ...
Cell & Microbiology
Dec 21, 2016
0
135
How do organisms without brains make decisions? Most of life is brainless and the vast majority of organisms on Earth lack neurons altogether. Plants, fungi and bacteria must all cope with the same problem as humans - to ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 8, 2016
4
234
How white blood cells in our immune systems home in on and engulf bacterial invaders—like humans following the scent of oven-fresh pizza—has long been a mystery to scientists.
Cell & Microbiology
May 26, 2016
0
7
A future computer might be a lot slimier than the solid silicon devices we have today. In a study published in the journal Materials Today, European researchers reveal details of logic units built using living slime molds, ...
Nanophysics
Mar 27, 2014
0
0
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 ...
(Phys.org) —Researchers at the University of the West of England have found that the feeding fronds on a type of slime mold have a property known memory resistance, which has been shortened to the term memristance. In their ...
(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 ...
Most organisms would die in the volcanic sulfur pools of Yellowstone and Mount Etna. Robust simple algae call it home, and their secrets to survival could advance human medicine and bioremediation.
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 8, 2013
0
0
