Selects: Slime Mold: 0% Mold, 100% Amazing

Summary

Stuff You Should Know – “Selects: Slime Mold: 0% Mold, 100% Amazing”

Host(s): Josh Clark & Charles W. ‘Chuck’ Bryant
Podcast: iHeartPodcasts
Release Date: September 20, 2025
Summary by: Podcast Summarizer

---

Episode Overview

This episode is a “select” from the SYSK archives (originally June 2021), where Josh and Chuck dive into the surprisingly fascinating world of slime mold. Despite its unappealing name and appearance, slime mold turns out to be one of the most mind-blowing biological phenomena, blurring the lines between intelligence, cooperation, and what it means to be an organism. The hosts unpack what exactly slime mold is, its crucial role in ecosystems, and the almost uncanny “intelligence” it displays without a brain. They also explore slime mold’s real-world applications in science and even technology.

---

Main Discussion Points & Insights

What Is Slime Mold?

• Slime mold is not a mold, not a fungus, and not an animal.
  • “It’s not an animal, it’s not even a fungus. … It’s a protist.” – Josh (03:30)
• Protist: Belongs to the kingdom Protista, along with amoeba and protozoans.
• It was once classified as a fungus due to its spore-producing habits and appearance, but advances in biology led to its reclassification.

Major Types of Slime Mold

1. Plasmodial Slime Mold
   • Shocking fact: Some can reach the size of a pizza (~12 inches across) but are technically a single cell with millions of nuclei.
   • "Some of those types of slime mold that are as big as a pizza are one giant cell." – Josh (09:37)
2. Cellular Slime Mold
   • Exist as individual cells but, when stressed (lack of food), join together into a larger structure to survive or reproduce.
   • Analogy: “Kind of like a swarm.” – Josh (12:34)

Evolution, Role, and Interaction

• Ancient Organisms: Around a billion years old, among the earliest life forms (06:17).
• Decomposition & the Food Web:
  • They engage in phagotrophy—engulfing, rather than externally digesting, food.
  • Vital for breaking down dead matter and recycling nutrients, serving as food for specialized beetles and larvae. (07:12)
• Human Interaction:
  • Harmless to humans—edible varieties are eaten in Mexico as “caca de luna” (moon poop). (08:10)

Appearance & Behavior

• Colors: Yellow, orange, red, white, maroon; rarely black, blue, or green. (15:12)
• Habitat: Found on the forest floor and can appear on lawns after rain during heat waves.
• Movement:
  • Move extremely slowly (typically 1mm/hour, but some can reach 1.5 inches/hour).
  • Movement is visible only in time-lapse but is purposeful: to find food or escape noxious stimuli. (23:08)

Extraordinary “Intelligence” in Slime Mold

Altruism & Group Behavior

• Self-Sacrifice:
  • “Slime molds … will sacrifice themselves to save others. And these are things without a brain or a central nervous system.” – Chuck (18:43)
  • Example: Engulfing toxins and separating from the colony to die, protecting the group.

Complex Decision-Making & Problem Solving

• Labyrinth Navigation (Maze Experiment):

  • Japanese researcher Toshiyuki Nakagaki created a maze with food at endpoints; slime mold repeatedly found the shortest path. (24:32)
  • “They basically learned to get to that food in the quickest, fastest way every single time.” – Chuck (25:21)

• Subway System Mimicry:

  • Atsushi Tero mapped oat flakes in the pattern of Tokyo’s neighborhoods; slime mold’s network almost exactly matched Tokyo’s real commuter rail system. (26:44)
  • “That’s. I mean, I had to reread that, like, five times to even believe that’s what happened.” – Chuck (26:52)
  • Also mimicked ancient Roman roads in the Balkans. (27:31)

• Implications:

  • Researchers propose slime mold algorithms for urban planning and infrastructure optimization. (28:41)

Learning & Memory Without Neurons

• Experiment: Slime mold crosses a bridge with a “noxious but harmless” substance (like salt); learns it’s safe.
• Social Transfer: If a “habituated” slime mold (used to salt) is fused with a “naive” one, the naive mold also crosses without hesitation (even after separation, if fused for 3+ hours). (45:57)
• “Slime Trail” as Spatial Memory: Their secreted trails help avoid previously searched areas. (46:11)
• Researchers still don’t fully know how this memory transfer works. (47:09)

Scientific & Technological Relevance

• Decentralized/Bottom-Up Decision-Making:

  • No pacemaker or “leader” cells; response is emergent, akin to flocking birds or swarm robots.
  • “Instead of like a hierarchy, it’s more like … how a flock of birds operates.” – Josh (36:41)

• Artificial Intelligence & Nanotechnology:

  • Insights from slime mold algorithms inspire developments in swarm robotics and decentralized AI.
  • “Anytime you have a huge amount of things that you’re trying to all get to do roughly the same thing…if you can figure out how to strip it down to a basic enough algorithm…you’ve got the key to the universe in your hand.” – Josh (39:49)

• Cosmology:

  • Modeling universe filaments: Sage Jenson used slime mold-inspired code to try mapping the structure of the universe by treating galaxies as food sources and “growing” a virtual slime mold among them. (49:07)
  • “If the slime mold recreated how the universe is invisibly linked together, the structure of it…I can’t even put a word on that.” – Josh (51:02)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Myth of “Mold”:

  • “We definitely need to point out that slime mold is also not mold.” – Chuck (09:01)

• On Slime Mold as a Giant Cell:

  • “Put your sock garters on because I’m about to blow your socks right off your feet.” – Josh (09:37)

• On Slime Mold’s Efficient Problem-Solving:

  • “The Tokyo subway map, it was almost a perfect match.” – Chuck (26:44)
  • “This is crazy. Why not? … All you have to do is have some oat flakes and a petri dish, and you’re good.” – Josh (29:11)

• On Mind-Blowing Intelligence:

  • “My mind’s definitely been blown.” – Josh (41:41)

---

Timeline of Important Segments

| Timestamp | Topic / Insight | |---------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:30 | Slime mold’s reclassification as a protist, not a fungus | | 09:37 | Plasmodial slime mold as a giant single cell | | 12:34 | Cellular slime mold: swarming and collaboration | | 15:12 | How to identify slime mold outdoors | | 18:43 | Altruism in slime mold: self-sacrifice for the group | | 24:32 | Maze-solving and demonstrable learning in slime mold (Japanese experiment) | | 26:44 | Tokyo subway mapping experiment | | 27:31 | Ancient Roman roads recreated by slime mold | | 36:41 | Emergent, bottom-up decision making (not top-down/pacemaker) | | 39:49 | Implications for nanotechnology/algorithms and the fabric of the universe | | 45:57 | Memory transfer between slime molds (habituated and naive experiment) | | 49:07 | Using slime mold logic to help map the universe’s filament structure | | 51:02 | Real-world limitations: verifying whether slime mold universe maps are accurate |

---

Takeaway & Closing Thoughts

Slime mold challenges what we think we know about intelligence, decision making, and cooperation in living organisms. With no brain or nervous system, it nonetheless displays learning, memory, and problem-solving capacities that dazzle scientists and have practical implications for network design, AI, and more.

Final Mind-Blowers:

• Slime mold can learn, remember, and “teach” without neurons.
• Its problem-solving ability has inspired new approaches in tech, urban planning, and even cosmology.

“Slime mold is teaching us to open our horizons and hearts…to new ideas of what constitutes consciousness and intelligence.” – Josh (32:33)

---

For Listeners Who Missed It

This episode is equal parts mind-expanding science and quirky SYSK banter. If you’ve never cared about “goop in the woods,” Josh and Chuck will have you seeing slime mold as a rock star organism that might just know the best way to run the Tokyo subway, map the cosmos, or inspire the robots of tomorrow.

---

Further Resources & Links

• TED Talk on Slime Mold Intelligence
• Scientific articles on Physarum polycephalum and biological computing
• “The End of the World” podcast by Josh Clark (artificial intelligence discussions linked to this episode)

---

Prepared by: Podcast Summarizer, September 2025

Transcript

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, everybody. If you care about what's in your vitamins, you're going to love now. Now Foods employs over 150 scientists who all share an obsession with quality. Now does comprehensive testing for everything from pesticides and contaminants to potency. And their obsession with quality means they never settle for good enough. And when it comes to the vitamins you take, neither should you. And now, B12 shots provide a full spectrum of B vitamins, including a 10,000 microgram blast of vitamin B12 in convenient on the go Packe. They're sugar free and vegan in a delicious mixed berry flavor. Visit nowfoods.com stuff to learn more.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I want to tell you about Odoo. It's a platform that has a suite of different applications that businesses need. And each app can vary from sales apps and CRM apps to websites, accounting and more. And all these apps live in the Odoo ecosystem, providing businesses with tools necessary to use for their business. Software for business is expensive and those costs add up and it can make things really complicated and confusing. Odoo is going to address all of this because it's all connected on one platform in a simple and affordable manner. Save money without missing out on the features you need with Odoo, just check out odoo-o o dot com. That's odoo d o o dot com.

[Josh Clark]

Hey there, everybody, it's Josh. And for this week's select, I've chosen Our June of 2021 episode on slime mold. It's actually a powerhouse episode and it's filled with maybe more amazing facts than any other episode we've ever recorded. And it's just like mind blow after mind blow after mind blow. So strap on your old timey football helmet and prepare for slime mold. I really think you're going to enjoy it.

[Podcast Announcer]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck, Wayne Bryant. And this is Stuff you should Know. No Producer Edition.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

It's just. Just us, buddy. We're gonna do it. We're gonna be just fine.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Jerry took an early vacation for Memorial Day.

[Josh Clark]

I know. She's always doing stuff like that. She knows how to live, and we're.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Stuck with slime mold in her absence.

[Josh Clark]

I like slime mold.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I knew you would love slime mold.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think it's pretty interesting stuff.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It's very Josh Clarky.

[Josh Clark]

It is kind of Josh Clarky. So much so that as I was researching this, like, I mean, I just kind of generally knew about slime mold, that it exhibited, you know, some weird level of intelligence here, there. But I didn't know much about it. And then as I was researching, I was like, I'm kind of into slime mold now.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Like all the different kinds of it. I like, regressed into like, you know, the nerdy 8 year old I never was.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And then you're like, let me Clark this over to Chuck and see what he thinks.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, I like slime mold too. I think it's kind of cool. Let's do it.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, Chuck, I'm ready. All right, everybody stand back because we are doing it.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And I think you could file this. I mean, it's not an animal slime mold. I guess we should just tell you right away. It's not an animal, it's not a fungus. Even though you would think it's a fungus if you saw it on the forest floor. And we'll get to all this stuff, but it feels like an animal. One of our animal episodes anyway. Sort of.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I was gonna save the fact that it's not an animal or fungus or the very end, but sure, we could do it at the beginning, I guess.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

You mean, like, literally in the last minute they were like, I still don't know if this is an animal. Is it. Is it a dog in disguise?

[Josh Clark]

You know, everything we just told you about. It's not an animal, it's not even a fungus. And then we just go to listen or mail.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

So what is it though? Besides super ancient? As in like maybe one of the very first living things?

[Josh Clark]

Well, it's a protist, actually. They figured out. And protists seems to be. Well, it's one of the five main kingdoms. Animal, bacteria, plants, fungi, and then protists. And protists are typically single celled organisms like amoeba or protozoans, things like that. And they have. I don't. I couldn't find out exactly when they did it, but they fairly recently, I guess in the history of biology, fairly recently reclassified slime molds from the kingdom fungi over to the kingdom Protista.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. Which is interesting because for years they had been studied by mycologists who were fun guys. And they found out later, they were like, you know what, sorry, this should really go over to the protistologists and they said, we kind of like these guys. Can we keep studying them? Since we have been. And they said, sure. And the protistologists were super pissed.

[Josh Clark]

They were, they were. They're still actually not over it. They're frequently TPing the academic halls of the mycologists whenever they get the chance.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, it's this very bitter battle.

[Josh Clark]

So that is pretty cute that the fungi people are still studying slime molds even though they're not fungi. But there's some good reasons why they were originally considered to be fungi. Mostly because that they're like these big kind of clumps and there's all sorts of different ways that they take shape and form depending on the species. They're different colors. Some of them form kind of net, like honeycomb structures. Some of them look like dog barf. One of the main ones we'll talk about today looks a lot like dog barf.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

They look like a fungus, though. Like, if you're walking in the woods and you saw this, 9 out of 10 people would say, well, it's gotta be some kind of fungus.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Especially because if you're staring at them, you would have to stare at them for about 5, 6, 10 hours to see that. They have a huge difference between them and fungi in that they move. They just move so slowly. It's not apparent to the naked eye. But if you film these things with time lapse cameras and speed it up, you can see, oh, they very clearly move about from place to place. So that's a big differentiator between them and fungi. But one of the reasons they thought they were like fungi, that they were fungi, is because they produce spores to reproduce.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Right. And I mentioned their ancient origins. They are about a billion years old. And like I said, could be like, as soon as there was stuff, it seems like there was slime mold.

[Josh Clark]

Basically.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Eating the bacteria that breaks down other stuff that dies. And that's what they feed on, bacteria, mold, yeast, basically anything that decomposes. Dead things, slime mold, engulf. I think it's not called photography, it's called phagotrophy.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It's a little.

[Josh Clark]

It's not how I was gonna say it, but yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

What were you gonna say? Phagotrophy.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But I think you're absolutely right.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Well, you know us, it wouldn't be us if we didn't probably both get it wrong.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

But that's when you basically surround something and engulf it and just sort of like move it into your body, just like sort of absorb it, basically.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Which is another difference between slime molds and fungi, because fungi actually break the food down and then absorb the broken down nutri. Nutrients. But the fact is, if you have things that are decomposing other things like bacteria, molds, yeast, the things that crawl onto or grow on dead people, dead trees, all that stuff, break them back down into their constituents. So the fact that the slime mold feeds on other things, it makes it a really important part of the food web.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

As part of the nutrient cycle, because other things come along and eat the slime molds. There's apparently a kind of beetle that has a specialized jaw that allows it to slurp up slime molds. I think some kinds of insect larvae eat them and then so it just kind of keeps going. But they're a really important part where you would just have these microbes that like the beetle couldn't get to that. They're able to basically get that energy from the bacteria by eating the slime mold.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Right. And even though other protists can carry disease, slime mold is quite human friendly, actually. You can eat the stuff if you want. There's a dish in Mexico and some parts of Mexico called caca de luna, which is exactly what you think it is. Poop of the moon. Moon poop. And they eat this stuff. I even looked online to try and get a good recipe, but it's not on the pages of Martha Stewart Living. You gotta dive deep into Reddit and stuff like that to get some good recipes. It seems like almost.

[Josh Clark]

Almost smacks of urban legend, but I'm seeing it in different enough forms that I think it's probable that it actually is a thing. The thing that scares me is that people say, like, in some regions of Mexico, it's like, that's not super specific, you know, True.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And we pointed out they weren't animals or plants, but we definitely need to point out that slime mold is also not mold.

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

As a produce.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. So one of the really amazing things about slime mold is there's a couple of different kinds as we'll talk about in a second, but a whole bunch of different kinds of species. One type of slime mold can get really big. I mean, some of them can get up to the size of like a medium or pizza. Large pizza, I guess, depending on whether you're getting ripped off by your pizza guy. But like 12 inches in diameter.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

That's enormous. Right. So you're like, well, that's pretty. It's a big blob of mold. Well, put your sock garters on because I'm about to blow your socks right off your feet. Some of those types of slime mold that are as big as a pizza are one giant cell.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, this is truly amazing. The plasmodial slime mold, which is, I guess you could call it one of the true slime mold. It has all the stuff, like, as if it were undergoing cellular division and all the different nuclei, like millions of nuclei, organelles, cytoplasm, all that stuff. But it's just not. It doesn't have cell walls. It's not individual little cells. It's just. It splits and lives inside this giant fortress wall.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. It's almost like if you took all the cells that should have made this giant blob up as a multicellular organism and just kind of broke them open and dumped all the contents into this blob.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And then threw the cell walls away. That's what you would have.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It's super interesting.

[Josh Clark]

It is. And it's. It's really kind of straightforward if you, if you just hear it. But it's also really easy to just keep going, like, wait a minute, why, why is it like that? And how is it like this? What's going on here? Which is one of those things that it just. It makes slime mold. It's its own thing. And we're still learning about this stuff, you know, every day.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And I mean, it gets. There's quite a few times in here where we're going to say, and here's where it gets even crazier.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

This isn't super crazy, but the other kind of slime mold or the other big broad category is the cellular slime mold. And these are lots of individual single celled organisms. But the kind of knockout fact about them is when they're stressed out, if they don't have a lot of food around, they can join up together and sort of look like one of those plasmodial slime molds. But it's not. It's called, I guess, pseudoplasmodial.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Because it's not a real one, but it basically says, all right, we're gonna all come together to try and find food together. And then when they do have food, they can be like, all right, we'll just go along our merry way and split up again.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Which is pretty nuts. They also will come together. Apparently it makes it harder for predators like those specialized beetles to eat them because those individual slime molds can be a millimeter in size or smaller. So it's pretty easy for a beetle to eat that. It's much harder for a beetle to Eat something the size of, like, you know, a quarter. Right. So they actually do come together. They come together to move. They also come together to reproduce and produce spores. But the characteristic of this, that what makes it a pseudo plasmodium rather than an actual true slime mold, is that they retain their cell walls, their individual cells. When they come together, they just kind of loosely formed together. And a really good way of understanding what these cellular slime molds create is kind of like a swarm.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, that's a good way to put it, I think. Or what's the God that. My favorite thing when the birds do that. What's that called?

[Josh Clark]

Flock of seagulls haircut.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Sure, that's it. Boy, you threw me there. So the plasmodium is covered by a layer of slime. And you're gonna wanna put a pin in this because when they. They leave behind a little. These little collapsed tubules, and it looks basically like. Not exactly like a snail trail, but sort of like a layer of slime. And you're gonna want to remember that for later on because these actually kind of serve as important little markers.

[Josh Clark]

As a matter of fact. Write it down, everybody. We'll wait until you get a pen and piece of paper.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Pull over, go inside the CVS closest to you.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Put on your mask. Buy a pen.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. Buy a piece of paper, pay 10, 12 times what you should have paid for that pen.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Really?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, my gosh.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Pen markup is big at cvs.

[Josh Clark]

I think the general markup at CVS is fairly high.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, they're like. We get them in here for the aspirin, then we really juice them with this ballpoint pen.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. I hope there's no CVS ads in this episode, but we'll find out what is.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

What's a good deal at a drugstore. Is there like a.

[Josh Clark]

There's none. There's zero.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

They all mark it up.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, everything's marked up because it's a convenience kind of thing.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

You sound like a grandfather. It's all marked up.

[Josh Clark]

Back in my day, you just go to a regular grocery store and buy.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Your pens and normal price from the pin factory. Straight from the man who made it.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

You know, when I was little, we would. For a short time. I'm not sure why we did this, because it's not like we lived out in the country, and this is a very old timey country thing to do. We bought our milk direct from a farm, and we would pull up and I would get to walk inside this huge walk in cooler like next to a loading dock. And I just thought it was like the coolest thing in the world somehow to get that fresh milk.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. Then they back the cow up and it made a beeping sound and they just squirt the milk right into the back of your station wagon.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

They mark it up first slosh your way home.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

So where were we? Okay. If you do see this stuff in the woods, if you're ever hiking along and you see a big or medium sized pizza, like yellow blob or orange blob, they can be red, they can be white, they can be maroon. Very rarely they can be black, blue or green. But usually it's sort of yellow or an orange. And you see that in the forest, you're probably looking at a slime mold.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Especially if it's really hot out and it just rained.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, the two, the worst thing in the world for me.

[Josh Clark]

You can also see them like on your grass too. Apparently if it gets really rainy and hot, slime molds will actually come out of the woods into your grass and be like, oh, this is pretty nice. And they aren't going to do any harm. It's not a problem for your grass. It just looks kind of gross. It's certainly not going to hurt you or your pets. And then eventually it'll dry up and turn to kind of a gray or tan powder and blow away. And that means that it just turned into spores and it just reproduced all over your place.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. I think maybe we should take a break because right now people are probably like, dudes, you promised greatness here. And so far it's a little humdrum.

[Josh Clark]

What?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

So put those sock garters back on because when we come back, we're really going to start knocking them off. With some of these amazing facts.

[Advertiser/Commercial Voice]

You can make a difference in someone's life, including your own, with a job in home care. These jobs offer flexible schedules, health care, retirement options, and free training. They also provide paid time off and opportunities for overtime. Visit oregonhomecarejobs.com to learn more and apply. That's oregonhomecarejobs.com there's nothing like sinking into luxury. At washablesofas.com, you'll find the Annabe sofa, which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. And get this, it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom. Starting at only $699. The stain resistant performance fabric slipcovers and cloud like frame duvet can go straight into your wash. Perfect for anyone with kids, pets, or anyone who loves an easy to clean spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slipcovers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style. Whether you need a single chair, loveseat or a luxuriously large sectional, Annabe has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Right now you can shop up to 60% off store wide with a 30 day money back guarantee. Shop [e-mail] Add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Hey, what's up?

[Podcast Announcer]

It's Mario Lopez. Back to school is an exciting time, but it can also be overwhelming and kids may feel isolated, a vulnerability that human traffickers can exploit. Human trafficking doesn't always look like what you expect. Everyday moments can become opportunities for someone with bad intentions. Whether you're a parent, teacher, coach or neighbor, check in, ask questions, stay connected. Blue Campaign is a national awareness initiative that provides resources to help recognize suspected instances of human trafficking. Learn the signs and how to [e-mail] blue campaign.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, Chuck, we set them up, let's knock them back down.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

So here's one cool fact is that slime molds basically can do the equivalent and do the equivalent of throwing themselves on the grenade. They will sacrifice themselves to save others. And these are things without a brain or a central nervous system. Like, it's not like they think, hmm, I'm feeling empathy today for my fellow mold. And so I'm gonna save everybody because I've come across some infectious bacteria. But what they do is they come across it, they engulf it, and then they say, let me go. And they cut themselves off from the pack, from the swarm and detach themselves and die of that infection, but save the rest of the group.

[Josh Clark]

And my heart will go on plays in the background as they get further and further away. Exactly. But that's altruism.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Which is pretty amazing considering, like you said, they don't have a brain or anything like that. So how are they doing this? We'll get to that later.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

So what about. Tell everyone about the dictystelium Discoides.

[Josh Clark]

Discoides.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Discoides. Okay.

[Josh Clark]

That's one of my favorite words now. Discoites.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Just because it has disco in it.

[Josh Clark]

So that this was. This is a kind of cellular slime mold. Right. So it's made up of a bunch of different individual organisms that come together. And when they come together, they practice altruism to some degree as well, because some of them will basically be like, okay, I'm dead now I'm dead. I'm going to turn into a bundle of cellulose fibers. And that cellulose is going to connect with other slime mold cells that have died and turned into cellulose and come together and form a stalk. And then at the top of the stalk, a bunch of different slime mold cells, they're called slugs, when they're individual like that, will climb up the stalk and then they'll turn into spores. And then in that way, they're sticking up out of the ground and a passing animal will come and they'll stick to it and it'll get a ride to greener pastures. But to do that, some of them have to, to form this stalk to let the spores grow on top of which is pretty amazing itself.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It is. And you know, we mentioned that they move, you know, they're not. They don't just sit around and wait for someone to drop a pepperoni near their pizza shape in the woods so they can eat it. They gotta go where the food is. And they either move by these little appendages, like little feet, like appendages. Those are the cellular slime molds, the individual single celled organisms that can come together or, and this is crazy, the other kind, they move as one big mass because there's no cell wall going on. So they just sort of expand and contract the cytoplasm to kind of gush their way along the ground very slowly.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Which is really neat to see because when they're, especially when they're searching for food, which is basically all they're ever doing, everything that they do is either to get away from some noxious stimuli or to go toward food. Usually to go to like us, basically. Yeah. I don't like that smell.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

No wonder we love them.

[Josh Clark]

But I like that smell. I'm gonna go toward that. So they make these amazing kind of. They look almost like sea fans, you know what I'm talking about? They look very fractally and they just kind of. They fan out is the best way to put it. When they start to go look for food and when they do find food, they start moving toward it. The, the cell walls contract and that cytoplasm goes that way. And next thing you know, over a very long period of time, next thing, you know, five days later, the slime mold has moved. And actually slime molds, if you don't like, they, they're totally fine living in petri dishes for as long as you want them to, as long as you feed them. If you stop feeding them, they'll just get out of the petri dish and start looking for food elsewhere. So they'll escape.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It's a little creepy.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But I mean, again, it's not like you're just sitting there watching this thing crawl out of its petri dish. It's. You leave overnight and you forget to feed the thing and you come back and it's half of it is out onto the table or something like that.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It's something like right out of gremlins, kind of.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And I think you said they move at about a millimeter an hour, but some of them actually, if they're really cooking, can go about an inch and a half in an hour, which.

[Josh Clark]

That's really fast.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I mean, it doesn't sound fast, but when you're talking about what we're talking about, it is pretty fast.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And I saw that a couple of places. Most people cite something like a millimeter an hour. I can't remember which one goes that fast, but yeah, I mean, you can't see it moving when you're staring at it, but over time you can for sure. Sure.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Or, you know, if you're just really patient and you can lock in on something, you might be able to see that.

[Josh Clark]

So when they started figuring out in the early 2000s, the Japanese researchers were some of the first to like, really study slime molds as showing some sort of intelligence. They figured this out from, you know, from watching these things actually move about. And when you. When you film them in like high speed and then replay it, you can see their movements are deliberate in a lot of ways. They're. They're not just blind dumb movements where they happen onto food. They clearly can sense food somehow or some way, and they spread out, and they seem to spread out and again, in a really deliberate way. And so some, some researchers started to test slime molds to see what they were capable of. One of the first one. One of the first researchers was a Japanese scientist named Toshiyuki Nakagaki, and great name. I think so too. And Dr. Nakagaki, which is even better.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah. Built a maze, like a pretty simple maze, but an actual three dimensional maze in a good sized petri dish, put what has come to be known as probably the smartest slime mold, Physarium polycephalum, which is kind of like the rock star of the slime mold world these days, put a physarium in it and said, do go to town Go find your little favorite oat flake treat, which is their favorite food.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And the key here is there were four different routes to two different endpoints where this food was. It wasn't just like, there's only one way to solve this maze. And so they put the little oat flake at these endpoints, and the microorganisms that grow on the oat flakes is what they're after. It's not like they love oatmeal or anything like that.

[Josh Clark]

Right, right.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And so he put them there and studied them, and over the course of hours, these things basically learned to get to that food in the quickest, fastest way every single time.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Like, it could conceivably get to it. Like you said, four different ways. But that fast way was the way that it would just, like. That's impressive. That's definitely noteworthy. You can write multiple papers on that kind of study. And so another Japanese researcher came along and said, hold my sake. A researcher named Atsushi Tero from Hokkaido University. Did you like that?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, that's good.

[Josh Clark]

And Dr. Tiro said, all right, what about this? What if we take some oat flakes and basically make a general map of the neighborhoods in Tokyo and see what the slime mold does with that? Put a little slime mold in a petri dish with these oat flakes that kind of mimic the neighborhoods of Tokyo and Wachsico, I think, over the course of, like, four or five days. Right?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And you might think, cool. It does what it does, and it goes after that food in the most direct way possible, which is what it did. But here's where it gets genuinely amazing, is they went back and they overlaid a map of the current Tokyo railway commuter system. The subway system.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And they laid it over this grid of this slime, and it was almost a perfect match.

[Josh Clark]

Isn't that nuts?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's. I mean, I had to reread that, like, five times to even believe that that's what happened, that this slime basically figured out the most efficient route to get around, essentially, Tokyo.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. Which, I mean, humans could figure it out too, but it took teams of human engineers and a very long time for them to figure this out. Right. So the slime mold was just like. Just. This is nothing. What else you got? You got any more cities that are more densely populated with more neighborhoods? Cause I'll just make your subway maps all day long, basically.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And they're like, nah, Tokyo is probably one of the most dense.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

I saw another similar kind of Bit of research, Chuck, where they actually used oat flakes to signify ancient Roman cities in the Balkans. Wow, this is. This is crazy. It's like an archeological study. And they put some. They sic some Fizerium on it and Physarum on it. And it mimicked ancient Roman roads that had been lost, were very obscure, had largely been forgotten, and ones that were well known in the Balkans. It mimicked these. These Roman roads, like things that people have been like, okay, this is the best route from this city to this city. The slime mold did basically the same thing and apparently revealed some stuff.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, I guess it could also. It's interesting, like, if it doesn't match up, if they do an experiment like this, does that mean, like, the humans get it wrong? Like, can they use this as a test and be like, sorry, the slime mold is spoken?

[Josh Clark]

I guess so. I kind of like the octopus picking the World cup, you know, they always take the World cup away if the other team that the octopus didn't pick ends up winning, you know?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Well, I wonder if you. I mean, and we'll get to real applications of this, but I wonder if they could do something like that where let's say they look at the Tokyo system in a couple of places it didn't match. They're like, we totally should have gone this way.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. I feel like that that is the direction that people are kind of going in, that they could conceivably use this for planning new stuff, you know?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Wow. So every city planner will have a slime mold researcher at their best.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I mean, like, this is crazy. Why not? It's pretty cool. All you have to do is have some oat flakes and a petri dish, and you're good. So I think we should take another break. What do you think?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I quite frankly want to eat some oat flakes right about now.

[Josh Clark]

I'm kinda in the mood for that too. We'll be right back.

[Advertiser/Commercial Voice]

You can make a difference in someone's life, including your own, with a job in home care. These jobs offer flexible schedules, health care, retirement options, and free training. They also provide paid time off and opportunities for overtime. Visit oregonhomecarejobs.com to learn more and apply. That's oregonhomecarejobs.com there's nothing like sinking into luxury. At washablesofas.com, you'll find the Annabe sofa, which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. And get this. It's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom starting at only $699. The stain resistant performance fabric slipcovers and cloud like frame duvet can go straight into your wash. Perfect for anyone with kids, pets or anyone who loves an easy to clean spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slipcovers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style. Whether you need a single chair, loveseat or a luxuriously large sectional, Annabe has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Right now you can shop up to 60% off store wide with a 30 day money back guarantee. Shop [e-mail] Add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Hey, what's up?

[Podcast Announcer]

It's Mario Lopez. Back to school is an exciting time, but it can also be overwhelming and kids may feel isolated, a vulnerability that human traffickers can exploit. Human trafficking doesn't always look like what you expect. Everyday moments can become opportunities for someone with bad intentions. Whether you're a parent, teacher, coach or neighbor. Check in, ask questions, stay connected. Blue Campaign is a national awareness initiative that provides resources to help recognize suspected instances of human trafficking. Learn the signs and how to [e-mail] blue campaign.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, did you just eat some moat flakes?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I did not.

[Josh Clark]

All right, we'll get you some.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Because here's the secret, everybody. When we take a break, we don't really go take a break.

[Josh Clark]

No. We should have had some crusty old oat flakes on your desk and just eaten them real quick. I don't know. I can't see.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

So. All right, we've said that these things don't have brains. They don't have. And I don't think we mentioned. It's not like they have like a. It's not like they're jellyfish and they have some sort of weird neural net.

[Josh Clark]

Right?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

They got nothing like that at all.

[Josh Clark]

Nothing. Like they have no way of generating consciousness in any form that we recognize. And yet slime mold is teaching us to open and open our horizons in hearts. Sure. To new ideas of what constitutes consciousness and intelligence. You know what I'm saying? Like it makes sense as a swarm, as a bunch of cellular slime mold makes sense. We're already familiar with the hive mind and the emergent property of a bunch of different things operating together. The real puzzler, though, is the single cell plasmodial slime mold. That's one big giant cell. And the fact that it behaves in ways that seem conscious to some degree.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. So if you want to kind of go back in time to where a lot of this research started, it wasn't actually in Japan, but it was in the 1960s. A physicist named Evelyn Fox Keller was curious if she could use math to model biological systems, because they had had success using math to explain and expand our understanding of physics. So she was like, let me see if we can do this with biology. And someone said, well, you gotta meet Lee Siegel. Lee Siegel is. Got a little surprise for you. And Lee Siegel got together and said, oh, Dr. Keller, you need to meet our friend slime mold. And Dr. Keller was like, this is the 1960s. I don't know what slime mold is yet. And Keller. And sorry. Siegel said, oh, well, just take a seat and let me tell you about this. Which is dictyostelium. Dictyostelium. Right. Dictyostelium Discoidium.

[Josh Clark]

I think that's discoides.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Discoideum.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Okay. But it's the one we were talking about earlier that creates the stems. They sacrifice themselves to create stems for the spores.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Right. And I think this was just significant because it was kind of like the first time anyone had observed and, you know, fell off of their lab stool and could explain it to others, these pseudo plasmodiums. But what they were missing was they were like, all right, we see this happening, and it's amazing. And how are they doing this, though? And the very first thing they thought of is, like, maybe it's like an ant colony or something, and maybe there's like a leader or a pacemaker cell or maybe a few of them that get together and they just sort of send out chemical signals to everyone else and say, go this way. And the rest are just sort of the worker ants that follow along.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And they knew in particular that there was a chemical called cyclical amp, which is related to ATP, the adenosine triphosphate, and that that was how they were signaling. But they thought that, like, you're saying that there are just a few signaling. Everybody else was responding. And what they figured out is that they had that totally wrong, that there weren't leaders, there weren't pacemakers who were in charge of, like, you know, signaling and, in effect, making decisions for the group, that it was actually like a group effort, and that the whatever. Whatever cell or slug that they're called in this cellular slime mold swarm was closest to food. It would signal with amp that, hey, there's some food over here. Let's all go over this way. And that signal would just kind of be passed along through the swarm, through the cellular slime mold. And the slime mold would move toward the food and start eating.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And this was, you know, I mean, you can see why they went in that initial direction because it made sense. And a lot of nature is organized with a top down principle in mind. Humans often organize with a top down principle. Big business, government, it's just a. It's a system that we're used to seeing in nature and in people. And so it made sense that they went that way and they never really thought about the fact that it could be like. No, they're. It's a total bottom up system. And whatever is closest can send out these signals.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So instead of like a hierarchy, it's more like. It's like how a flock of birds operates. A flock of seagulls haircut operates where.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

They run so far away.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But it's the hair that's closest to whatever it's running from. It's the first to run and everybody else follows. It's kind of like how a flock of birds will turn depending on, you know, which way they need to turn based on that bird making decision and the rest of the flock basically following it. It's a bottom up, bottom up decision making kind of thing. And so we started to learn a lot. We know a lot about bottom up decision making now, as opposed to when these guys were working back in the 60s, I think. But in the 21st century, that whole idea of bottom up decision making or decentralized decision making has become a real component in artificial intelligence design. Because if you've listened to the End of the World with Josh Clark, you know that one of the hardest things in the world to do is program something to understand everything, because you have to input all the stuff it needs to know. Whereas if you can just kind of set up some sort of simple algorithm to let the machine think for itself. You finally got something.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And I would imagine. I didn't see this anywhere, but it seems like this might could have some applications in nanotechnology as well. Like the idea that we could program billions of tiny little nanobot bugs to clean the windows of your house every day.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Like a lot of things collectively doing one bigger thing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Am I off base there, or could that potentially be a thing?

[Josh Clark]

Not at all. I think it totally could be a thing. It's anytime you have a huge amount of things that you're trying to all get to do roughly the same thing, but they need to not, you know, redouble their efforts or replicate their efforts. So you don't want one cleaning one part of the window and the other one coming over and cleaning the same part of the window that's already clean. All you have to do is figure out how to teach them. If this happens, do this, and if you can figure out how to strip it down to a basic enough algorithm that could conceivably be used for just about any situation, you've got the key to the universe in your hand. Like, there's actually. I read we'll have to do an episode on it one day, But I read an article about a guy who was. I think he was a physicist back in the 80s who was like, I think the universe is basically an operating system that is. That is. That goes down to two. There's two bits. You could say it's black and white, one or zero, it doesn't matter. But there are two kinds of bits, and depending on the combinations that these things form, everything else in the universe arises from that, including consciousness. Planets, slime, mold. Everything comes out of these two types of bits that basically make up the fabric of space and time interacting with one another in increasingly sophisticated patterns.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

And that is exactly what you're talking about. So if we can figure out what that computation is, what those algorithms are that give rise to larger and larger stuff, you can do anything. It's weird. You can do increasingly sophisticated stuff. The more basic your algorithm is, it's almost a paradox.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. This is like Dr. Octagon stuff. Dr. Octagon.

[Josh Clark]

I don't know.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Is that right from Spiderman?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he was Alfred Molina, you mean? Yeah, sure.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

All right.

[Josh Clark]

I like Alfred Molina. I think he makes some really weird choices for parts.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, he's great.

[Josh Clark]

I'm sure somebody's like, hey, we'll give you $10 million to play Dr. Octagon. I'd be like, sure, you got it. Where do I sign up?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, I need to get him a movie crush because he actually is Friends of the network. He's a friend of the network. I think he's been on the Daily Zeitgeist a few times.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And like, they booked him on some other comedy shows. I'm like, guys, throw a little melina my way.

[Josh Clark]

For real. Get that Molina spread all over Movie Crush.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

You've been on Daily Zeitgeist twice? I've never been on.

[Josh Clark]

I have. I've been on Movie Crush once, too.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I had Miles on the movie Crush the other day, and I was giving him A hard time because they haven't asked me on, and they sleep on twice.

[Josh Clark]

That's hilarious. Keep it up, Chuck. Keep it up.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

He was like, no, man. I was like, miles, that's cool.

[Josh Clark]

Did he really? You flustered him.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I feel like he was on skates for a second there.

[Josh Clark]

That's hilarious.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I let him off the hook. I'm having Jack on next week, so I'm really, like, going full court press here.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Miles is like, man, be on guard. Chuck does not pull punches.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It's funny because Miles, you know, as you know, is such a smart, smart guy. And just, like, having a conversation with him is always amazing. And then he comes on and he picks Mallrats. What's his favorite movie?

[Josh Clark]

Was it really? That's his favorite movie of all time? Huh?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I mean, that's what he picked. And he was like, hey, man, I never said I had good taste. So it was pretty fun.

[Josh Clark]

Do you have any hints of what Jax is gonna be?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Well, I know it's Pulp Fiction because he had me save it, like, two years ago, and I just, you know, we kept slipping through the cracks. So he's gonna come on next week for Pulp Fiction.

[Josh Clark]

Very nice.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

All right, so let's get back to. I mean, we talked about how the dd, as we're gonna call it, moves around without muscovities. Yeah. Without the pacemaker cells. But. But that original, true slime mole, the big single celled one that's just made up of all the goopy cytoplasm. We didn't really talk about what they do, because if you don't have cell walls, you're like, well, how's this stuff moving around? It's actually made up of what's called oscillating units. And so these units oscillate at different frequencies depending what's going on, like, where they are and then what their little neighbor oscillating units are doing. And so when they go close to food, they start oscillating and shaking, like, hey, hey, hey, I'm near some food. And then that just sort of gets that flow. Everyone else starts oscillating in a similar manner. And that gets that flow of cytoplasm going in that food direction.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And so the slime mold effectively moves to the food because of that oscillating unit that looks, again, like a fan spreading out, going to find food and then finding it. The slime mold moves toward it, or.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Like you said, away from something that they don't like.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yes. Which is pretty neat. So Those are the two things. It's moving toward food or moving away from something. And one of the things that they found is that slime mold can actually learn, and not only learn to stay away from something, it can actually teach other slime mold to stay away from it, Even slime mold that's never been introduced to it. Or alternately, it can teach. This is the. Really, the sock garter fact. It can teach other slime mold that something that seems harmful is actually harmless.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, this is a pretty cool experiment.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

So these researchers put slime molds. They built a little tiny bridge. It was very cute. And they coated this bridge in a noxious substance. It wasn't harmful to them. It was harmless. It was like salt or something, let's say. And then they put those little oat flakes on the other side as their ultimate temptation. And so these first slime molds start creeping up to it and sort of dipping their little toe in the water and saying, this stuff is pretty noxious. But then they learned, right? Like, oh, okay, so it's not actually harmful. I can go across this stuff. And what they found was that it learned to cross this little bridge just as fast as slime molds that were placed on bridges that didn't have any coating going on.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So it said, okay, this stuff's fine. It tastes gross, it's way too salty, but it's not gonna hurt me, so I'm gonna get to food just as fast. Right. That's pretty amazing in and of self.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

But here's where it gets crazy.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

We need, like, a Ben or Matt or Noel to come in and say that.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, totally.

[Josh Clark]

So they take the slime mold and break it apart and fuse it together with other slime that have never been exposed to this noxious stuff before. They're called naive. And the other ones are called habituated. And those naive ones, when they encounter this noxious stuff, like a salt bridge for the first time, they don't approach it with trepidation. They go right across it as fast as the habituated ones that it's fused to. This is really weird because this is the first time this stuff's encountering it. And they think that somehow the habituated slime molds are passing on the information. Like, no, no, we know it's gross, but it's actually fine to the naive slime molds. And they figured out, Chuck, that it doesn't matter if you take three habituated slime molds and fuse them with one naive slime mold or take three Naive slime molds. And just one habituated slime mold, it's going to approach us and move across it just as fast as either. In either situation.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And then they also sort of figured out how long this took. So the naive slime molds, they separated after an hour of fusion with those habituated. I'm gonna call em in the know molds.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And it forgot. It forgot that the coating was harmless and it sort of had to approach it with a little more trepidation. But if they had been fused for three hours or more and then separated, it remembered. I mean, technically can't remember, but they do have this weird sort of memory that works. And I think they even figured out some of this snail trail stuff that they leave behind. Acts as sort of like a spatial memory because they come across this snail trail and say, oh, someone's already been here before me.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So there's no reason to go research this area because there clearly wasn't food there. Yeah. And Again, here's your 10 minute reminder that slime mold don't have brains or neurons. So all of this is just, just astounding stuff that we're still trying to get to the bottom of. Like that habituation thing. They're like, we don't know, we have no idea. But we're gonna go find out and maybe in 10 years we'll be able to explain it.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Right. So eventually, you know, the people that are. People that are hip to the slime mold thing are like trying to spread the. They're trying to spread the word and be like, this stuff is really amazing. They're doing TED talks on it. It was a really good TED talk on it, in fact. And some coders said, hey, wait a minute, you know, they're doing all this amazing stuff like the overlay of the Tokyo subway, and it's lining up perfectly. What if we actually generated code of the slime mold and kind of reverse engineered it and we could see what that looked like and how we could use it.

[Josh Clark]

So, yeah, this one artist named Sage Jensen basically figured out, or took, I don't know exactly who figured out exactly what the slime molds algorithms were, but somebody wrote them down and Sage Jensen came along and turned them into C code and basically ran these things as like algorithms and found that these fractals started forming that look essentially just like slime mold moving across a petri dish in search of food. Which is pretty cool in and of itself. It was an art, art project basically. But someone on a team of astrophysicists heard about Sage Jensen's work, and they used it when they were stumped, trying to figure out how to map the invisible matter that makes up basically the structure of our universe, that if we can just crack that nut, we'll understand the universe exponentially better than we do now, but we cannot figure out how to do it. And so, just like with the ancient roads between the Roman cities or the Tokyo subway map, someone figured out to use slime mold to basically try to create the structure of the universe. These invisible filaments?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, these filaments that came out of the Big Bang. So I guess they went back to Sage Jensen and said, first of all, Sage, you use C code. Isn't that really just B code, if we're being honest? And he said, that's not how it works. Get out of my office.

[Josh Clark]

Great coding joke.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Thank you. It's my only coding joke, and I just made it up.

[Josh Clark]

That's the only coding joke, I think.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

No, I think it's not a bug. It's a feature. Isn't that one of the things?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, that's true. True dat.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Old timey. So, yeah, they went to Sage and they said, you're an artist, but this is pretty amazing. I think we can apply it here. And they modified it, and what they did was. And of course, there's always oats involved. They put a model in place with virtual slime mold cells, and they put it on a map with 37,000 real galaxies. And they used, I guess, virtual piles of food to represent the galaxies, and the bigger the galaxy, the bigger the pile of food. And so they did this modeling through the coating and had the virtual slime mold seek out the most efficient way to reach this. And I guess in theory, they're hoping that they get a sort of map of the universe out of it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So when the slime mold was finished, they all stood back and went, that's amazing. How accurate is it? And they all just realized that they had no idea how to verify it. But, no, surely. I think what they're doing is they're taking this as an initial guide, and then they'll go back and try to figure out how to verify it. And. And maybe the slime mold did figure out the most efficient way to link together these galaxies. But that would be. I can't even put a word on that of what that would. How impressive that would be if the slime mold recreated how the universe is invisibly linked together, the structure of it.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

You know, what if slime mold is.

[Josh Clark]

God what if we're asleep right now and this is all just one dream? Chuck.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

The other cool thing they figured out with the slime mold moving around is when they were researching them, they found that those mazes that they were running them through, they went even faster through the maze when they had some sort of noise, like a bright light or something. Like we said, they like to go away from things they don't like. And that negative input of that light basically made them say, all right, let's pick up the pace and make these decisions quicker and get to that food.

[Josh Clark]

Stop fussing around. I don't like this light staring at me.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I think we kind of blew some minds today.

[Josh Clark]

I think so. My mind's definitely been blown.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Did you want to cover the Amazon thing?

[Josh Clark]

Nope. Okay, good. That's it for slime old. Unless you got anything else right now, do you?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I got nothing else.

[Josh Clark]

We'll have to REVISIT this in 10 years. And thanks to Dave Rues for helping us with this one. And since I said Dave Rues, I think Chuck, it means it's time for listener mail.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Hey, guys, I'm gonna call this Night Trap response.

[Josh Clark]

I just laugh every time I hear those words together.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Now I know. Night Trap. This is from Aaron. Hey, guys. Just finished the Night Trap video game show. Thanks for bringing it to everyone. I own the 25th anniversary edition. Like you said, it's not a good game, but has its moments. One other game worth noting is called Double Switch. It's of the same style and video camera control quality and it starred Corey Hayne, perhaps arguably a little better game, but still had the same thing going on. Really? I'm sure your research finds lots of things that don't quite make it into the final show. Aaron, we did not know about Double Switch, so nice work there.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And Aaron says, I've listened to so many shows, I feel that Chuck and I are some sort of long lost brother separated at birth. Generally agree with just about everything he says and I'm always fully entertained. It would be nice to meet you guys if you ever get another tour started and making it back to Michigan. Keep up the good work. I finish your book and I have the pre order poster in my office. And I've converted friends and family. So that is from Aaron in Michigan. And we're definitely going to start touring again. I would say probably next year. Although we haven't really talked much about it.

[Josh Clark]

No, but we need to. It's definitely starting to get to be time to get talking, I guess. Although I gotta admit I have not been. I miss being on stage, but not the traveling part.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Well, you know, that's what they say. That's what rock stars say.

[Josh Clark]

It's not the heat, it's the humidity.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

No, they say that, you know, you get paid to travel, you don't get paid to play shows.

[Josh Clark]

I've never heard that before, but it really makes sense.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

If you can figure out how to get paid for both, then you're really, really doing something right.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Good stuff. Yeah. And if we get back to Michigan, we've already done Detroit. We've had a lot of calls over the year for Ann Arbor, so maybe.

[Josh Clark]

That'S where we go. Yes. Well, who is that again?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Aaron.

[Josh Clark]

Aaron. That's what I was gonna guess. Thanks a lot, Aaron. That was a great email. Thanks for the Corey Haim reference and all that stuff. And if you want to get in touch with us like Aaron did, you can send us an email to stuffpodcastheartradio.com.

[Podcast Announcer]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app.

[Advertiser/Commercial Voice]

Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? WashablesOfAs.com has your back featuring the Annabe Collection, the only designer sofa that's machine washable inside and out. Where designer quality yes meets budget friendly prices. That's right, sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no risk experience with pet friendly stain resistant and changeable slipcovers made with performance fabrics. Experience cloud like comfort with high resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime. Check out washablesofas.com and get up to 60% off your annabe sofa backed by a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund. No return shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back. Upgrade [e-mail] Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[Josh Clark]

Pedigree believes dogs bring out the good in people. Pedigree brings out the good in them with high quality nutrition at an affordable price. They offer a variety of tasty dry food, wet food and treats that your dog will love. They're made with high quality ingredients and they have great taste in every bowl. Plus they support total health. Visit your local retailer to try Pedigree products for the nutrition your dog needs and a taste your dog will love. Learn more at pedigree.comfeed-good Feed the Good.

[Advertiser/Commercial Voice]

Every business has an ambition. PayPal Open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo, pay later and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up when it's time to get growing. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.

[Josh Clark]

This is an iHeart podcast.