How to get a physarum culture

[ian]

So you want slime? 

I can give you slime. I'll post physarum to anyone anywhere free of charge. 

"Free?" you say, surely that's too good to be true? 

Indeed it is, I said free of charge, not actually free. This is the slime mould collective, lone oat flakes do not get visited by physarum fairy. You must prove your worth if you want to join and engage with the network. Assimilation doesn't hurt, we promise and you might like it. 

Tell us why you want the slime, what are your hopes and fears for slimekind? Where do you you see your slime in five years time?

A paragraph, a short story, maybe a few lines of verse, how about an expressive dance? We don't mind we just want you to communicate.

In return we will let you have your very own slime sent discreetly in a plain envelope - your friends and family need never know! 

[Benny Fulmer]

i made an account today largely for the hopes of obtaining this slime! i hope that counts for something. however i have always loved slime and slime molds since i was a child, as an enthusiast of slimy living things in general. i am especially fascinated with both their intelligence and their bright colors!

i hope to cultivate my slime in a safe environment where i can observe it and make little cooing noises at it. maybe i'll make little mazes for it to find food in or something. it can help me find efficient navigation routes, as slimes have been used to identify possible mass transit paths in the past!

let me know if i have earned my slimy companion c:

[ian]

Welcome to the collective! Cooing noises are much appreciated ( hey, I wonder if these things can 'hear' ). I do talk to my slimes but usually all they get is 'Why aren't you in your petri dish?' and 'Gah, what did I just put my hand in?'

[Gavin Vaughan]

I bought some slime mould online however I don’t think it’s working :( I just have a yellow stain and no formation. I am currently on an arts residency where I’m mixing slime mould with embroidery. Having a back up slime mould would be extremely handy.

My exhibition is on from November for a month and I hope to introduce loads more people into the wonders of slime mould.

[ian]

Dead culture tends to go greyish, leak yellow liquid and smell funny ( although physarum smells funny anyway if you're not used to it).  You've plenty of time to raise more slime - if you feed heavily you can get to a square metre in just over a week. How are you mixing it with embroidery? It'll squeeze through relatively open weave fabrics like tote bags BTW 

[Gavin Vaughan]

Thanks. The embroidery is going to be using gold metal Threads. So be able to grow through it aswell. Thank you for your advice and help I’ll post some pics to keep people updated.

[lu mafo]

Hi Ian! 

I just joined the collective today and saw your post. I will be working with slime mould for my bachelor thesis starting in November and it would be great if I could get some from you! 

I will be working on creating a computer model that simulates its behaviour and then use the model to solve design problems. I will be doing so in a design museum setting so that my workspace will be part of the exhibit. I was thinking about having some slime mould around the museum and come up with games that involve the slime mould and the visitors (e.g. competition where visitors and slime mould connect different points. I'd be interested to see who manages to that in the most efficient way). 

Hope you can help me out in this adventure! :p 

[ian]

How do you even start modelling an organism such as physarum? I speak a little matlab but I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to approach a problem like that.

[lu mafo]

Hi Ian! 

I will start off doing something like this paper:

 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-26662-6_27    

and then see how I can improve it ;)

Usually people use Simulink to make models  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulink) but I will be using NetLogo because it is free, easier to use (if you don't have a programming background) and it also allows for 'participatory simulation' (when people act as agents within the model) (https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/hubnet.html). Pretty lit ;) 

[ian]

Maybe one day I'll dust off enough coding brain cells (I used to be good thirty years ago) to understand that stuff. One of the talks I do for school groups is on the biological roots of AI, I do wonder what we'd get if we trained a Gan on it. I'm building a new image processing pc at work - might be a fun aside 

[lu mafo]

haha 
I think there is always time for some coding (no matter how annoying it can be sometimes to debug). 

How do you mean to train a GAN on it? So that it behaves like the slime mould? 
That would indeed be fascinating, I wonder how to do it though (don't know much about the inner workings of GANs).

For sure sounds like something fun to do. Please let me know how it goes once you start working on it! :) 

[Yloo]

Hi Lu Mafo !

I'm very interested to hear more about your idea, I might be able to help you. Could we talk about it by voice call via Facebook? (or another network)

Have a nice day :-)

[Evan Brown]

Hello Ian, my girlfriend and I are currently trying to start a gourmet mushroom business, and while doing research I came across something called slime molds. From there I fell down the rabbit hole, I've been watching videos, reading articles, care sheets, forum posts, everything I can get.  They're just such facinating creatures.  I had wondered how I could get my own, while watching Heather Barnett's Ted talk I heard about this collective.  I immediately paused and came over to check it out when I saw this post. Could this really be true? Could I too own one of these amazing creatures? That's what sealed my fate, I had to make an account.  Oh but I needed administrator approval, I refreshed my inbox waiting for that confirmation email, then again, and again, and again, and finally, I got it.  And now, Here I am.  Just a man with a dream, a dream of having a protist as a friend, to annoy my friends, relatives, and aquantiences with constant gifts of yellow blobs and oats.  As a man who dabbles in science I would love to see what these amazing beasts are capable of.