All Blog Posts (124)

I am interested in using slime molds, alga, fungi, or bacteria for the purpose of interstellar messaging in lieu of other physical objects such as the plaque on the Voyager space crafts.

In other words, let us encode our messages to any sentient intelligence out there in such organisms and then communicate that message by spreading the spores of those organisms - with a suitable delivery capsule for re-entry into planetary atmospheres - into outer space.

Billions of copies of…

Hey,

Anybody has some Didymium nigripes cultures they could spare?

I found some food colouring and coated some oats in blue and green food coloring to see what would happen and it worked amazingly, now I have teal/turquoise coloured slime mould!…

Hello! I'm not sure if anyone will actually see this haha, but I am currently working on a little project and have been having some trouble getting mazes for some tests I want to run.

I have tried to make some myself (out of hot glue and also plasticine) which, as expected, was a fruitless venture... lol

I was wondering, if anyone saw this, if I could get some advice on making a maze that the slime mould won't climb over and would preferably (not essential) fit inside an (I…

https://github.com/maajor/Physarealm

This is an VERY interesting plugin about slime molds on grasshoppers. However, I encountered some issues when trying to install it. Can someone help me?

My email: djy38753@gmail.com

Hey everyone!! My name is Emilė, I am an IB student in an international school in Japan. I am currently writing my World Studies Extended Essay paper on how slime molds (specifically Physarum polycephalum) can help design better transport systems to help improve the carrying capacity of the top fastest growing cities in Africa.

I am looking for professional opinions, so if anyone would be up for a quick chat, I would greatly appreciate that. I could send the questions in advance and I…

My first time producing "daywalker" sclerotia. The instructions in Ian's manifesto worked perfectly!…

Hey all,

Wanted to share a project I just published at a conference. I definitely benefited from this community (everyone here is so inspiring and helpful :) ) and I even got some of my first slime mold samples from @ian. You can see in the paper I shouted out to this community too!

-----

In this paper, we explore how embedding a…

I wonder if anyone would consider a trade. I am aiming to cultivate physarum polycephalum slime mould in my Kindergarten classroom again; call it a class pet or kin-folk, in the past it's been a good experience for us. Trouble is, I don't currently have any sclerotium and wondered…

Whilst monitoring the growth of my physarum polycephalum culture, I noted the formation of an unidentified green mold. It does not seem to be impacted the growth of Molly (the physarum polycephalum) however is visibly apparent. Attached is a photo. Does anyone know what kind of mold this is and any information on it?…

I did this commission working with slime mould and food coloring about a year ago and I realized I never shared it on this page! So here it is for anyone interested: https://www.nuriarovira.art/nr-physarum-and-maths (it's the result of a small digital residency with a maths magazine)…

This week's bout features Maizie the Physarum polycephalum against Larry the Lichen (heritage unknown).  Larry is the heavyweight and the younger of the two at a mere 250 million years but it's thought the agility and experience of Maizie (600 million years) will win through.  This could turn nasty.    

Ding ding!…

There is a paper detailing how a slime mould can be guided by loading it with ferromagnetic particles and steering it with magnets, but I was wondering whether an un-modified physarum could detect a magnetic field.

I ran a set of 4 time-lapses using a strong magnet (top of picture) and starting conditions as shown in the photo so heading towards the pole would give it a guaranteed food reward.  I would expect the slime to preferentially set off towards the pole if it 'learned' that…

Just starting off another time lapse.

I mentioned before that the Physarum seemed to take a long time to get going on the art paper substrate I was using.  It did speed up after a bit and I was wondering if it had begun to disregard an unpleasant substance in the paper.  The experiment I've just started is to see if this may be the case.

Slime mould A is from the previous run on the art paper.

Slime mould B has only been exposed to clean kitchen tissue.…

This is my Physarum Polycephalum exploring its Petri dish over the space of 3 days.  One second of video time equals 30 minutes of real time.

Maizie's Travels.

This is a 3D printed template for cutting an 85mm disc to sit in the bottom of a Petri dish.  

STL for this is on Thingiverse : https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5047067

Still work to do on getting the best from the camera.  Exposure is unstable (yes, auto-exposure is off) and I can probably get better quality from  it, but tweaking is the fun part.  The video was taken at 1 minute intervals over a day and a half.

As for the Physarum, I was trying watercolour art paper which is fairly absorbent if soaked but suspect there is something in there that the slime doesn't like as it's developing much more slowly than a slime growing on kitchen tissue in a…

I'm looking to keep my slime mould experimentations in a cupboard so designed and 3D printed a compact time-lapse rig using a microcontroller camera (ESP32-CAM).  Only goes to 1600x1200 pixels and quality isn't great so doesn't stand too much magnification, but fine for watching the overall growth patterns of the slimy beast. …

I rehydrated Maizie on Thursday and she's already trying to escape to pastures new. 

(OK, I know they have over 700 sexes or whatever, but it's a she :¬)