Hello New Members!

[ian]

We've had four new members over the last couple of days, by Slimoco standards, that's a rush!

I figure we need an intro thread. New member or old, feel free to post to say hello!

[ian]

I'm Ian, professional microscopist, amateur microscopist and rearer of slime moulds. I've just put in my first fellowship application using the engagement work I do with slimes as my supporting work. I'll hear in January whether slimes have got me a promotion! ( much more work for no extra pay! Gotta love academia! )

[Amy Pence]

Hello, I'm Amy, and my interest in slime moulds came from reading about them in Deepak Chopra's new book, Total Meditation. It fueled a new story for me. I am a poet and fiction writer. I have been culturing Physarum for about a month, with the expertise of a biology teacher/friend. Some cultures developed fungus; I am wondering if those are contaminated and should be disposed of. Also, we are adding oats, but what if the agar is drying out?

[RyChu]

Usually, if the slime mold is contaminated, you can let it cross over to a new piece of agar or paper, then toss the old, contaminated piece. Somebody else might have more info on if it's possible to rehydrate agar ... I usually do it on paper unless there's a specific reason I need agar (experiment, display) and that tends to be easier to keep wet.

Here's an incredible guide from Ian (OP) that has a TON of valuable info:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WE-K-Fyh5c5sA88dHdfqB_dmWLjpCcOf/view

[Amy Pence]

Ah, great!  Many thanks!

[Sarah Vitak]

Hi! I'm Sarah. I'm a scientist, artist, and engineer. Currently I do freelance science writing and podcasting. I have a slime project I've been wanting to do for a while. But I'm just now getting started!

[Petra Fleurbaaij]

I'm Petra, amateur entomologist. I developed an interest in slime moulds since I started to make nature observations in the more quiet months. Not so much to do regarding bees and wasps. I'm spending a lot of my free time in nature. Taking pictures, doing observations, gathering information about biodiversity. Mostly in the same nature reserves/natural parks nearby my home, in the southern part of The Netherlands. All my observations are entered in www.waarneming.nl, abroad (outside the Netherlands) in www.observations.org. Including observations (and photos) of Slime moulds. I am fascinated by slime moulds: their wide range of beautiful colours, shapes, stages of development, the way they survive, repeating patterns, artistic forms. The Why? are they the way they are?

[Bob Lowe]

My name is Bob. I'm an assistant professor of computer science at Southeast Missouri State University. My areas of research are tensor analysis and artificial intelligence. I also dabble in biologically inspired computation. I am teaching a course on that topic to my graduate students in Spring 2021, and slime molds will play a prominent role in that class.

I have written simulations of slime molds for use in optimization problems, and I am about to branch out into raising biological slime molds for a closer study of their behavior.