JOE BIDEN?: Scientists Observed A Brainless Blob Thinking And Making Decisions

People often throw around the word “brainless” as an insult, but the slime mold Physarum polycephalum, which literally has no brain, might make us rethink this characterization. This blob-like lifeform can perform surprisingly complex calculations, such as solving mazes or exhibiting basic forms of memory.

To learn more about how Physarum molds make smart decisions with no brain, researchers from the Wyss Institute at Harvard University and the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University tested their environmental awareness. The results revealed a “novel preference and sensing capability in the unicellular organism” in which the mold uses its body as “both a distributed sensor array and computational substrate,” according to a study published on Thursday in Advanced Materials.

These abilities open a new window into the intelligence of a brainless (or “aneural”) organism, but they also provide insights about behavioral capabilities throughout the tree of life, and can inform the development of soft robotics, artificial neural networks, and other bioengineering applications.

“[Physarum] doesn’t have any neural systems inside of it; it’s basically one gigantic cell that grows,” said first author Nirosha Murugan, an assistant professor at Algoma University and a former member of the Allen Discovery Center, in a call. “People are using Physarum more in the world of cognition because you can read out its decision in its body,” meaning that the organisms’ “thinking” process is expressed by its body shape.

Read more at Vice.

{Matzav.com}