One side of a Petri dish is coated in sugar; the other in protein. The slime mold Physarum polycephalum fares better without a border between the two sides, the researchers found.RAINA MENDELSince the spring of 2017, Hampshire College has had an unusual visiting scholar: the acellular slime mold Physarum polycephalum. This idea came from conceptual artist and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats, who invited the slime molds to model various scenarios of human societal problems, and potentially offer solutions.
“Because slime molds are totally other, it means that they can potentially serve as outsiders, where they don’t have any inherent human biases, and we can all come around to observing their behavior to pay heed to their advice,” Keats says.
Over the last year, with help from Keats, biology professor Megan Dobro, and Hampshire College Art Gallery director Amy Halliday, Hampshire undergraduates have used P. polycephalum to examine human quandaries, from border policy to drug addiction, in a project known as the Plasmodium Consortium. The results of their experiments are the subject of a symposium today (March 2) at Hampshire.
P. polycephalum spends most of jts life cycle as a giant, motile cell, known as a super-organism, that contains many genetically distinct nuclei yet ...
