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Once I built a railroad, now it's done
I have probably mentioned before that in high school I did a science project on the cellular slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum which involved converting a fish tank into an incubator and breeding E. coli as a food source—I'm guessing that might not be legal anymore—in order to study the effects of plenty, starvation, and time on D. discoideum's life cycle (which is awesome: amoeba to slug to fruiting body to spore; rinse, repeat). It was incredibly fun. I read a lot about cyclic AMP. I took dozens of photographs through a microscope. I had no moral qualms about eating mushrooms. And it still makes me happy to see plasmodial slime mold in the wild, as happens when walking in the woods. But I think that even were I totally indifferent to the concept of slime mold, this article in The Economist would still be a thing of beauty:
Tokyo's is not the first transport network to be modelled in this way. A study published in December by Andrew Adamatzky and Jeff Jones of the University of the West of England used oat flakes to represent Britain's principal cities. Slime moulds modelled the motorway network of the island quite accurately, with the exception of the M6/M74 into Scotland (the creatures chose to go through Newcastle rather than past Carlisle).
Science, I love you.
Tokyo's is not the first transport network to be modelled in this way. A study published in December by Andrew Adamatzky and Jeff Jones of the University of the West of England used oat flakes to represent Britain's principal cities. Slime moulds modelled the motorway network of the island quite accurately, with the exception of the M6/M74 into Scotland (the creatures chose to go through Newcastle rather than past Carlisle).
Science, I love you.
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(ETA spelling correction)
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(What did the mayor say?)
Trains--Japan--and slime molds!
I know! Let me know your tall one thinks.
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De nada.
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The tall one wonders whether the same results could be generated by doing the experiment with America's rail networks before they were decimated. I'm all for trying! If he'll get me a map, I'm sure we can get some slime mold ... seeds? spores? ... online, and oat flakes shouldn't be hard to come by.
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It's the best article I've seen so far this year, and I suspect it will need something ridiculously awesome to unseat it.
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Only just now thought of "You've revived your back-burner project of creating a slime mold capable of absorbing the complete Emily Post! You're not busy at all!"
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They're measured in millimeters! No one has to call in Steve McQueen!
(I wonder if I can find any of my D. discoideum photographs. Like everything else, of course, they're in boxes.)
"You've revived your back-burner project of creating a slime mold capable of absorbing the complete Emily Post! You're not busy at all!"
*snerk*
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While I agree with the overall sentiment--I am not going to get like the xkcd guy with velociraptors--I note the article's observation that "It [P. polycephalum] can grow into networks with a diameter of 25cm." And whatever the size, a locomoting...thing we used to classify as a fungus...is still pretty freaky. In an fascinating way, but freaky.
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Yes. I'm sorry. I thought we were talking about cellular slime molds (which start as micrometric single cells and later aggregate into multicellular organisms no longer than five millimeters and usually less). Plasmodial slime molds can be very impressive.
(Oh, dude. They are even more impressive than I thought: "A bright yellow slime mould that can grow to several metres in diameter has been put in charge of a scrabbling, six-legged robot." Now I can't decide if we're going to be outcompeted first by dolphins, squid, or slime mold.)
And whatever the size, a locomoting...thing we used to classify as a fungus...is still pretty freaky. In an fascinating way, but freaky.
I'm sure if it's not a B-movie yet, someone will think of it soon . . .
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If they start shaping arcane sigils, we'll know we're in trouble . . .
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"Slime molds to Newcastle" is totally my new expression of choice.
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"The denizens of Carlisle, meanwhile, may wonder what objection slime moulds have towards their fine city."
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I had the pleasure of telling Tom Disch that the title of Camp Concentration is an astonishing unintended pun, as it is probably true that there is nothing in a neuron that you could measure that would tell you more about its behavior than its cAMP concentration.
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I can talk about the radio frequency of neutral hydrogen, too. 1.42 GHz all the way.
(Are you sure? I find it hard to believe I haven't rhapsodized at you about slime mold before. Clearly we don't take enough forest walks together.)
as it is probably true that there is nothing in a neuron that you could measure that would tell you more about its behavior than its cAMP concentration.
Cute!