A brainless slime mold known as Physarum polycephalum uses its body to sense mechanical cues in its environment. Then, in a process similar to what we consider 'thinking', they decide on the best ...

Physarum polycephalum is the smartest slime mold you’ll ever meet. Really, though - this humble blob can solve problems and even teach its fellow slime molds to do the same. “Slime mold” is really a ...

We've long known the slime mold can determine the shortest path through a maze, or even model optimal railway systems. Now, a group of researchers has shown these amoeba-like single-cell organisms ...

Slime mold has one of the worst public images of any single-celled organism. For one thing, the Physarum polycephalum, as it's scientifically called, has a gross nickname evoking a drippy texture and ...

Last Saturday, the Paris Zoological Park unveiled a new specimen, and even though it’s at the zoo, it’s not an animal. It’s called a slime mold, and it’s probably the coolest organism you’ve never ...

Compared to mold, humans know next to nothing about creating efficient networks. The single-celled organism Physarum polycephalum, a slime mold, grows outward in search of food, optimizing along the ...

Mathematical modelling of Physarum polycephalum dynamics has emerged as a vital research area that bridges biology, physics and applied mathematics. These models aim to elucidate the sophisticated ...

You don’t need a brain to learn something new – not if you’re a slime mold, anyway. Scientists who watched Physarum polycephalum search for food found that the slime mold could learn to ignore certain ...