What is this food for slime mold

[Gus Xia]

Dear All,

Anyone knows what is this perfectly "round" shape food for the slime mold in the following two pictures (screen shot from youtube)? I am currently using oats to feed the mold, but my experiment somehow requires a standard food source in exactly the same weight, shape.

Thank you very much!

Gus

[ian]

That's probably  oat meal agar - 10%  oats in 1% agar if I remember rightly.  More accessible might be to use cooked oats rolled out and sliced into squares. 

[Gus Xia]

HI Ian,

Thank you so much. Do you have a pointer to some paper on the ingredient? It seems to too difficult to make and I'd like me do it right.

Thank you,

Gus

[ian]

Hi

Here's a link to the most comprehensive paper on the subject. If you don't have access to an autoclave or pressure cooker, bear in mind that this stuff will go off very quickly. The higher percentage oats have a real tendency to overboil so be careful. Also rather than attempting to grind the damned stuff when dry, try blending the oats with water. I just cook whole oats with an equal weight of water, roll out to a few mm thick and cut equal weight squares - takes about ten mins compared to the couple of hours the agar takes and is perfectly adequate if you just need the same sized reward at each point rather than manipulating the quality of the reward.

https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arp111