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[ontolog-forum] Slime molds navigate mazes

To: "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2012 17:56:27 -0400
Message-id: <50749D8B.4080709@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Colonies of single-celled organisms can cooperate by sending and
receiving messages (usually chemical based).  The simplest are
bacterial colonies (such as the plaque that forms on teeth).    (01)

But slime molds are colonies of amoebae that can move around.
When food is plentiful, they live as independent cells.  But when
food is scarce, they clump into colonies that can move and find
new sources of food.    (02)

Following is an article about experiments that test their ability
to solve mazes to find a food source:    (03)

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/19846365
    Brainless slime mould has an external memory    (04)

A brief summary of their abilities:    (05)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold
> Professor John Tyler Bonner, who has spent a lifetime studying slime
> molds argues that they are "no more than a bag of amoebae encased
> in a thin slime sheath, yet they manage to have various behaviours
> that are equal to those of animals who possess muscles and nerves
> with ganglia -- that is, simple brains."    (06)

The field of biosemiotics (with branches of zoosemiotics for animals
and phytosemiotics for plants) begins with the signs used by these
colonies of one-celled organisms.    (07)

Even these simple colonies have cells that become specialized for
various functions.  More complex organisms evolved from simple colonies
with more highly organized specializations of the original "stem cells".    (08)

John Sowa    (09)

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