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! 

[Magnus Peterson Horner]

Hello, I made an account about a week ago and just received my order of Physarum from Carolina and am hoping to get some more slime mold because i spent $30 to get the Physarum :(. I am currently trying to harvest the Physarum in order to maker Sclerotia so I can store it. 

I am an artist so my end goal is to harvest enough slime mold and use it in my own artwork. I would love to get more so that I could begin experimenting with harvesting my own slime mold!

Let me know if have this is a good enough reason! haha :)

[Chris F]

Ian, we just got our slime molds yesterday and are looking forward to reviving them. I'm hoping to do some experiments via web cam for the kids in her class while their school is closed for COVID. Maybe their teachers will get into it enough and I can leave them spawn for future generations. Either way, wanted to let you know that this is a cool thing you're doing. Thanks. 

[Peter]

Back in history

The motile grex caught my eye

Now it’s time to see.

 

Are they Physarum

Or Dictyostelium?

Both fascinating.

 

Interpretive dance

Best left to the clever moulds

Would love a sample.

[Shlurek]

hi dear ian,
we want to experiment with the blob. watch how he eats the flake. give him mushrooms so that he eats them. otherwise i can't think of anything else. no, wait: we want to cut him into several pieces, take them to the kindergarten and give them away to everyone of my friends who wants them. then everyone will have a blob. then we can compare what he does.

[Katharina Cromme]

Ian, dear Ian

hardly to imagine something more generous than sending precious slime mould to one another. Nothing is for free, really! But it is all about taking and receiving. 

Therefore, I humbly ask for some slimy moldy attention - with all the fears, hopes and other expectation towards slime mould I can offer.

I am a theatre practitioner and writer, based in Switzerland, and my artistic focus is perception as a broader frame, and ecology as a more specific topic. In addition to that, I am a garden enthusiast and me and my garden-friends got offered to transform some small waste land next to our house into something else. This something else offers to deepen playing with the contrast of urban and natural space and sound (since the waste land is next to our house, but also next to a quite noisy street.)

I'd love to focus on fungi and really, slime mould is on very top of my all times favorites. (After slime mould, there comes plankton, and then amoeba.)

Promise: I will give names to my new friends, will talk and listen to them and let you know how our oaty friendship grows.

Most sincerly

Katharina

[Paul]

Hello Ian, I would sure love a bit of physarum, I will give it a good home and love it and take care of it and make it as happy as can be, and I deeply appreciate any help you can give me!

[Yura Selivanov]

Hi Ian

Currently I have an art project with slime mold Fuligo Septica https://www.instagram.com/fuligoseptica/ Also we are starting local biolab for art projects and biodesign https://www.facebook.com/GuerckenBiolab-107971984260960  I would be very glad to receive physarum because it will help us to run more cool project in our biolab

[Paul]

Hello Ian, I received a wonderful surprise in the mail today, three physarums...! May thanks, I will give them a good home and pass some along if I can get them to reproduce, many thanks Paul

[MP]

hello Ian!!

i've had the bizarre idea to scour my local forests for slime... bizarre because these missions really only have oyster mushrooms appearing xD which means i've only connected mushrooms (and leaves) with piezos, that's about as far as this went.

i'm hoping to connect slime mould with other capacitive sensors... will you please save me =)

[Joss]

I have some slime mold I collected in the forest and put in a closed terrarium. I left it in my basket a bit too long and it looks a bit dehydrated and sad. What can I do to revive the little weirdo?

[Magnus Peterson Horner]

Hello Ian!

You have sent me slime mold before and I was able to some really amazing artwork with it but unfortunately I ran out of the daywalker species that you sent me and that is the best one for growing for artwork. Is it possible for you send me another batch of daywalker? 

Much appreciated,

Magnus

[Tymon Zachary]

Hello

I'm glad to have found this forum, because I'm really interested in slime molds and there are not many books about them and hardly any in Polish. Moreover I haven't found really useful and practical informations about colecting and culturing slime molds at home. So I have tried with no success so far - I have only managed to set up a moisture chambers and observe some tiny fruiting bodies.

(Let's make it easily visible) I would be very grateful for a Physarum.

And there come justifications:
At first I was trying to isolate a plasmodium on my own but it is harder than I anticipated. Also, I'm not sure if every slime mold can grow as big and easy to observe as Physarum Polycephalum. I my moisture chambers I've only managed to spot some small fruting bodies (through stereo mikroscope, hardly visible with eyes) and I'm not sure whether even after successful isolation (which I haven't achieved yet) could I work on it.

Why do I want to do some observations on a slime mold? - I thought it is a good subject to do a work about for biology contest. I want to find out it's food preferences or maybe try ti determine it's demand for specific nutrients, or tolerance for some chemical substances (salt, ethanol etc.) Simply, I would like to see it on my own.

But while working with such things - safety first. Every book says that slime molds are cosmopolitan. But what does it mean exacly? Are slime mould species living on all lands between certain parallels, all over the world or on specific continents? My question is: Does Physarum live all over the Europ? I would rather not be guilty of implementing invasive species. Do I have to take any precautions?

I would like to ask some more questions if you don't mind. Is there any atlas like "Myxomycetes of Europe" available on-line? Is there any way of transfering slime molds from moisture chamber on agar without working with spores (it's pretty complex and spores are hard to acquire from small fruiting bodies)? And my last question - How can one differentiate certain species, even small?

I would be very grateful for any answers and I'm looking forward to having an opportunity to work with Physarum.

I wish all of you a good day,
Tymon