If slime mould ruled the world Ian Sample

If slime mould ruled the world Ian Sample Story from: www.guardian.co.uk Image Attribution: Rex Features Given enough agar and oats how would the amoeba-like slime mould go about colonising the Earth?One question never far from scientists' minds is how events might unfold were a giant slime mould to emerge in the Far East and embark on global domination.History tells us what happened when restless humans set out into the world. Kingdoms rose and fell as wars raged. Urban centres grew and connected. Trade networks spread first across countries later spanning whole continents.But slime mould is a different beast. Would the same scenarios play out as it colonised the world? After a series of simple experiments involving agar a globe a bag of oats and an obliging slime mould an answer of sorts is now at hand.Andy Adamatzky director of the Unconventional Computing Centre at the University of the West of England in Bristol picked slime mould " an amoeba-like single-celled organism Physarum polycephalum " as a harmless and friendly creature to work with. In its vegetative phase it goes in search of food by extending "protoplasmic tubes" which transport nutrients and metabolites through the organism's body. What is this? This is an experiment in virtual agent news production. Keywords: Microbiology, Biology, Science, Animals, World news