Nature has provided a great deal of inspiration for computer scientists developing search algorithms and ways to solve complicated problems with as little computing power as possible. Ant colonies, beehives, bat hunting, ...
Mathematics
Feb 27, 2020
0
7
Most people associate the idea of creatures trapped in amber with insects or spiders, which are preserved lifelike in fossil tree resin. An international research team of palaeontologists and biologists from the Universities ...
Archaeology
Jan 8, 2020
0
1344
A slime Santa beard has been made by Ian Hands-Portman at the University of Warwick using slime molds, a myxomycete which is a single giant cell with multiple nuclei that lives in dark damp places and likes to feed off bacteria ...
Cell & Microbiology
Dec 17, 2019
0
4
The Paris zoo's latest attraction is a brainless, eyeless, single-celled organism with no limbs or stomach but more than 700 genders.
Plants & Animals
Oct 17, 2019
5
582
Slime has been present on Earth for a very long time—almost 2 billion years, according to a recent reassessment of fossil evidence.
Paleontology & Fossils
Oct 10, 2019
1
100
Giant snails inch across a plate of pumpkin and cucumber in central Thailand, an "organic" diet to tease the prized collagen-rich mucus from the molluscs, which to some cosmetic firms are now more valuable than gold.
Plants & Animals
Jul 20, 2019
0
27
Nature has a way of finding optimal solutions to complex problems. For example, despite the billions of ways for a single protein to fold, proteins always fold in a way that minimizes potential energy. Slime mold, a brainless ...
General Physics
Jun 26, 2019
0
1
On a clear and cold February morning in 2015, Ruth Kassinger slipped on an insulated down coat and donned knee-high waterproof boots. Stepping aboard a long fishing boat in South Korea's Hoedong Harbor, she gingerly navigated ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 21, 2019
0
0
Physarum polycephalum, which literally means "many-headed slime," is a slime mold that inhabits damp and dark habitats, such as decaying wood. Thanks to its ability to respond to stimuli such as light, chemicals and vibrations, ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 7, 2019
0
6
In 2016, CNRS scientists demonstrated that the slime mold Physarum polycephalum, a single-cell organism without a nervous system, could learn to no longer fear a harmless but aversive substance and could transmit this knowledge ...
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 22, 2019
0
803
