Slimy porridge squares - a tidier way to give out physarum

[ian]

This might be handy for those of us that tour with slime. 

I've never liked agar for giving out cultures - it's hard to get a decent density of physarum to make forty odd portions so I grow on paper with oats spread about 5mm deep in concentric circles but the end result looks like a yellow cow pat and the slime tries to escape within a day of filling the tray - and a 20cm slime makes one hell of a mess of your stand when it goes walkies late at night. 

I'm trying out this -  50g oats plus 50g water microwaved until good and stodgy.  I roll that between foil to about 5mm thick and cut it into 2cm squares. The lumps are a bit dry straight off but put onto wet paper they hydrate nicely and stick down.  A starter culture ( the sad looking lumps of agar ) soon colonises the whole lot and as the oats are packed densely it keeps the slime occupied for a while - these have been in the tray for six days and are only just thinking about moving.  The squares peel off easily and can be cut up further for handing out.  You even get a ghost patch appearing where you've taken a square away.

[ian]

Did a session on Wednesday and these worked great. I found long strips spaced about 1cm apart actually work a little better as they need less of starter to inoculate, a plastic knife and fork do great for taking slices off to distribute. I gave out fifty sets and used just a quarter of a 20cm tray.

[François-Joseph Deminiere]

Hi Ian do you know about "all bran" or "specialK" cereals ?

they seem very close to your compound I think...

I'll try them as soon I can find some for my whife (who eat that kind of food too... :)

nobody tried this kind of food for blobs ?

François-Joseph

[ian]

Special K might break down bit too much to be convenient, they will eat breakfast cereal though - I've fed mine on cornflakes before. The main reason for oats is they're a convenient size to make small bits of bait and cost about 40p per kilo. Rice is good too