Day jobs

[ian]

Physarum doesn't exist in a vacuum ( I've tried - it doesn't end well ), what do our members do with their time when they're not taming protista? How diverse is our little colony?

I'm a microscopist - electron and laser scanning, best job I've ever had.

I teach students to use the equipment and spend hours in the dark looking at cancer cells, plants and pieces of patients. Physarum started as a sideline at work, became a hobby and is now a weird crossover where it's hard to say what's work and what's play time. I do a lot of public engagement in which slime takes a central role, but I've also been known to let children play with siege engines and run pyrotechnics lectures.

[Benny Fulmer]

oh that's fun give more children siege engines please, clearly adults haven't made good enough use of them

i'm young and unemployed for mental health reasons - aspiring storyboard artist beyond that, with three years towards a degree. slime is actually giving me a responsibility that gets me out of bed more often, so it's doing me more good than one would expect

[ian]

I've still got the ballista - the only full size (smallest of the Roman types) which had to be seriously down tuned, a tabletop torsion catapult and the cannon - which fires ping pong balls using gun cotton. Needs a big space that one.

I'll out myself as having clinical depression for years, a job that gives you hours alone comes in handy for that - as long as I've remembered my headphones 

[Evan Brown]

Currently I have a few irons in the fire, but mainly when I'm not tending to slime I'm tending to my wonderful girlfriend who puts up with my odd hobbies.  I'm studying computer science and working on building a gourmet mushroom business with my girlfriend.  I'm an amature scientist but eventually hope to start my own little lab, for the mushroom business mostly, but also for my chemistry and microbiology hobbies. I also like raising things various odd plants, microbes, and mini beasts, anything unique and interesting really. Right now I have a few different isopod colonies starting up for a self sustaining micro biome project that involves slime mold, and an experiment involving duckweed, as well as a penicillin project just out of sheer personal curiosity. 

[Mark Skelly]

I'm a recovering graphic artist/photographer/retoucher who somehow ended up a database developer. I work for a major US cable television network. I've always dabbled in fun science projects, especially when they reveal really interesting and unusual phenomena. I found out about Physarum due to the recent news coverage of the new exhibit in the Paris Zoo and ordered a Carolina Kit a few weeks ago. Just today I'm subculturing the original specimen and also trying to jump start a new one from the Sclerotium stage.

[RyChu]

I just did that today! Aren't the sclerotia so much smaller than you thought they would be? Did you actually follow the instructions or did you just wing it?

[Mark Skelly]

Hi @Raichu! Yes they are quite small at first, but as they  transform into plasmodium it's surprising how they get much bigger it gets as time goes on. Take a look at my original included specimen escaping it's confines. Wow, am I glad I put it in a plastic bag (and remembered to zip it closed).