All Blog Posts (122)

"Opens a door you would never have opened on your own" 
Great podcast review of slime mould documentary The Creeping Garden

https://soundcloud.com/matt-21-1/outlier-podcast-2014-the-creeping-garden

I have a visiting scientist (Dr. Hanh Tran) from Vietnam who is spending this academic year at the University of Arkansas. She is currently working with Physarum polycephalum.  We have the Carolina Biological strain and one wild strain collected locally but would like to have 2-3 additional strains. If anyone could send me a small portion of a sclerotium in an envelope, it would be greatly appreciated. My mailing address can be found on the University of Arkansas web site.

       …

Hi everyone! I am new here and am wondering if there are any other teachers who use slime mold in their classes. I teach AP biology at a high school in Phoenix, AZ, and am interested in incorporating slime molds into my classes in reference to cell communication.

I am also curious how and where you order slime mold.

Thanks!

Hello.  I am a photographer who specialises in fungi and nature photography.  In my search for fungi I often come across slime mould and I find it fascinating.  I do not grow the slime mould in Petri dishes, but I do sometimes observe the growth on old fallen wood or other substrate, as it competes for food with other animals, plants or fungi.  Here are some still photos I have taken of some of our local (Eastern Australian) slime mould.…

Thanks to everyone who contributed to my slime mould talk at the recent TEDSalon Berlin event. The slime moulds (and me) were warmly received! Here's a mini review from the event: http://blog.ted.com/2014/06/24/7-things-i-learned-at-the-tedsalon-berlin/

I'll post notes and links from the talk here soon.

Hi,

I am trying to grow my Slime Mould, it was growing great but suddenly stopped. I think it dried out, so I add some boiled water (cold), cleaned the Petri Dish and gave it new oats, nothing happened. Then I change to a agar base, but nothing happens. Maybe I used the wrong agar, but it stopped growing and I think its getting really mouldy. :(

Here is a picture of my pet in the agar.

Here is the link of the process: …

i'm doing an experiment with slime mold but i don't know where know where to get some, can anyone help me out?!?!

For anyone in London next weekend, I am giving a talk and running a workshop on Physarum polycephalum.

Saturday 25 January 2014, 11.30-14.00

Full info and booking at: https://www.societyofbiology.org/events?event_id=313

The talk will introduce the biology and diverse areas of research working with Physarum as a model organism, and I will talk about my studio practice (studies and…

If you are in Rotterdam on Friday 27 September we are running an experiment to see if humans can follow a few simple behavioural rules of the plasmodial slime mould in order to communicate, navigate and cooperate. 

We are inviting people to participant and become a human slime mould super-cell, or come along to observe what happens.

Info and booking at:beingslimemould.eventbrite.com

Coming up in Rotterdam Sept-Jan... 

slimoco exhibits a three part interactive installation 'Being Slime Mould: observation, simulation, enactment', as part of 'BIODESIGN

On the Cross-Pollination of Nature, Science and Creativity' at New Institute, Rotterdam.…

Review by Allison Meier, of Physarum work recently on show as part of Cut/Paste/Grow: BioArt in Brooklyn, curated by GenSapce, William Myers and…

 I have found that the use of EVM (Eulerian Video Magnification) can improve looks and shape of physarum videos. I therefore give an URL of a split screen EVM which I have recently done.

http://ttjohn.blogspot.in/2013/05/physarum-experiment-using-evm-i-first.html

I recently received two nice and healthy petri dishes of Physarum from the USA to work with, but after a few days, and almost overnight, they changed from lively succulent plasmodium specimens to sclerotium, and have been totally static for days. I have rehoused parts of them in fresh agar filled petri dishes but they are also inactive. I even added a drop of purified water to see if they were in need of rehydration, but still no change. I am rather traumatised that I have not looked after…

Check out the trailer for a feature length slime mould film in production, made by slimoco members Tim Grabham and Jasper Sharp, and featuring Simon Park and …

Check out this BBC4 documentary on the science of decay. There's a decent section on slime moulds, including Bruce Ing foraging for them in the woods, the Tokyo transport network experiment and Soichiro Tsuda's physarum controlled robot. Some gorgeous time lapse's too.

Catch it on iPlayer for another 5 days...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012w66t

Just as I'm about to do a bit of work with the slime mould it decides to get all reproductive on me. Am I normal?

Had a great outing today to the MA Art & Science @ CSM, London. Thanks for having me. Please add photos of your Physarum polycephalum experiments here and let us know if they do anything interesting or unusual. The collective animation we made during the day is on here and YouTube.

Thanks again for a great day.

I took some Physarum to the Margate Photo Festival last weekend and invited visitors to feed it with a variety of substances to establish likes and dislikes. Obvious liking for oats and rice, pasta and flour; distinct dislike for alka seltzer, ibuprofen and bicarbinate of soda; but I'm not too sure about tobacco and chilli powder (it seemed to investigate seriously but not engulf). Worth further investigation, with a closer position...

Thanks to all those who fed the slime…

On 22 March 2011 I am giving a talk about my work with Physarum to a group of artists, designers and biologists at GenSpace, New York's Community Laboratory. http://genspace.org/

We will be looking at the range of research currently being done with slime moulds, my experiments and attempts to collaborate with the intelligent organism and will be making slime mould art.

So watch this space for new postings of oat eating drawings and the…