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! 

[Andrew Pearson]

I am another individual drawn to the wonders of the slime mold via the SYSK episode, and your subsequent response. I was already considered hunting down my own slime mold to try to keep as a little slimy friend, but when I heard I could have it show up at my doorstep (discreetly no less!), I knew there were slime molds in my future. 

I am a biomedical research PhD candidate, and also an art enthusiast. So the potential to blend two of my passions by attempting to generate art pieces with slime is very interesting to me! I've already started spreading the word among my colleagues, and you may have additional new members soon, haha.

Anyway, I hope my plans are worthy of a slimy gift!

(Additionally, are there other colors of slime molds which can be kept in a similar manor to the physarum?)

[Mikayla]

Here is my sonnet about Slime Molds.

Creeping through the forest, avoiding light,
A small foreign entity takes the scene.
Though it possesses inordinate might,
It is a rather harmless, slimey sheen.
Nomenclature aside, it is not mold,
Rather Protista, species a-plenty.
Evolving, over a billion years old,
The tasks it may accomplish are many.
Oat flakes and bran bring bacterial food
For amicable yellow physarum.
They solve mazes, plan cities-though crude
From the comfort of a terrarium.
In lab or forest, we love our slime friends.
Ever-adaptable, slime never ends.

[Tobias Herden]

Hi there, listened to the stuff you should know episode on POGs in the 90s, where your listener mail was red. I had to sign up for your page. These little creatures are so fastcinating.

I red in the your blog that someone is working on how to obtain insulin from slime molds.

I would like to adopt a slime mold as a family member. As he will probably oulife us all, i would pass everything on to him or her or maybe it. So the family fortune will be saved together with the family name.

Meanwhile I hope that my two kids will find the slimy creature also fastcinating and are eager to experiment with him. In a mold friendly manner of cause.

 

May the slime be with you and hopfully with my family

all the best

Tobias

[Nate Birch]

I'm going to live with my sibling and his kids over the summer. I am planning of doing lots of cool biology things with them (also for me). I've grown one slime for a college lab so I know how much fun they can be to watch and feed. So Ian as a fellow lover of our future overlord the SLIME please help me spread the love to my niblings.

[April]

Hi, I heard the SYSK on slime mould and I'm super intrigued. My 8 year old and I would love a baby slime mould to nurtue & learn about. I already have lots of oat flakes in the house as well as petri dishes and agar from when I taught my kids about how gross your mouth is if you don't brush your teeth properly :D

[Kelley Schmedtje]

Hello, Ian!

I, too, learned about slime mold from Stuff You Should Know. I am absolutely fascinated! My daughter and I would love to take care of some and see what it can do! I also think my preschool students would love to learn about them. We could examine them through magnifying glasses and chart any movement. In five years I hope to have a healthy family of slime mold with which to spend many fun hours playing and bonding. I am presently working on my interpretive dance entitled Physarum Phun but it is not yet completed.

Please consider sending me a culture! Thank you!

Kelley

[Nuno]

Hello everyone!
Thank you so much for accepting me.

After watching a documentary I became really fascinated by Physarum and read through everything I could find online.
I'm really happy to finally have found this forum, where people actively share their interest and experience.

I have been several times with my little one, my son, in the woods, trying to find a Physarum, but without luck so far. :(
In Portugal it shouldn't be easy right now, taking into consideration that in the south we don't have many dense woods/vegetation and that temperatures climb up to 42ºC (dry air as well).

I would really like to share this fascinating creature with my son and try to set up a little vivarium, simulating it's "natural" habitat, to see how it behaves.

Further I would like to keep growing it (on agar and on filter paper) and to generate sclerotia, I then could send to people having the same difficulty I'm having in Europe / Southern Europe.

I would be so thankful if you could help me out with some "slime".
I know I'm having a great time with my son in the woods, but we both are becoming a bit disappointed by not finding any Physarum.

I would be so thankful if you could help me out with some "slime". I would gladly pay for any charges and effort.

Thanks in advance and with best slimy regards!
Nuno

[Kyra]

Hi Ian, just like others on here I heard about your slime mould collective project through SYSK and after reading about it on your Google drive document I became instantly obsessed! These little (and big) things are so fascinating! I'd love to get a sample to grow, learn from and teach. Not to mention showing it off to my inquisitive friends when they come over!

Please let me know when you are sending out another batch of envelopes!

Excited to learn more from everyone one here :)

[Tabitha]

Hi Everyone!

Thanks for adding me to your group. Like many others I came across this site by way of Stuff You Should Know (love them!!). My kids and I are excited to learn all that we can about slime mold and are very hopeful for receiving our own little creature. I am impressed that slime can map out the Tokyo subway system without the assistance of Google Maps. It is our intention to expand this with other maps. I won’t lie, I fear coming home to my house covered in slime (imagine ghostbusters II). 

[Joen Milden]

Pharsarum needum, in my labarum, if not alarum.

[ian]

I'm still here and still posting slime! I just don't come online that often and reply to this thread by pm.

Long live the slime! 

[Fien]

Dear Ian 

Would it be possible to send some slime over to Torhout, a small city in Belgium? 
I'm a science teacher educator at University College VIVES and I would like to teach the students about the wonderful world of slime mold.
It would really be great to do some experiments...

Kind regards,
Fien