
Paris zoo unveils a slime mould - hhs
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-zoo-blob/paris-zoo-unveils-the-blob-an-organism-with-no-brain-but-720-sexes-idUSKBN1WV2AD
======
bcaa7f3a8bbc
Slime mold is an extremely interesting species that can perform computation,
even without a nerve system.

> Ateam of Japanese and Hungarian researchers have shown P. polycephalum can
> solve the Shortest Path Problem. When grown in a maze with oatmeal at two
> spots, P. polycephalum retracts from everywhere in the maze, except the
> shortest route connecting the two food sources.

> When presented with more than two food sources, P. polycephalum apparently
> solves a more complicated transportation problem. With more than two
> sources, the amoeba also produces efficient networks. In a 2010 paper,
> oatflakes were dispersed to represent Tokyo and 36 surrounding towns. P.
> polycephalum created a network similar to the existing train system, and
> "with comparable efficiency, fault tolerance, and cost". Similar results
> have been shown based on road networks in the United Kingdom and the Iberian
> peninsula (i.e., Spain and Portugal). Some researchers claim that P.
> polycephalum is even able to solve the NP-hard Steiner Minimum Tree Problem.

> As the slime mould does not have any nervous system that could explain these
> intelligent behaviours, there has been considerable interdisciplinary
> interest in understanding the rules that govern its behaviour. Scientists
> are trying to model the slime mold using a number of simple, distributed
> rules. For example, P. polycephalum has been modeled as a set of
> differential equations inspired by electrical networks. This model can be
> shown to be able to compute shortest paths. A very similar model can be
> shown to solve the Steiner tree problem. However, currently these models do
> not make sense biologically, as they for example assume energy conservation
> inside the slime mould. Living organisms consume food, so energy can not be
> conserved. To build more realistic models, more data about the slime mould's
> network construction needs to be gathered.

[...]

> Moreover, it has been reported that plasmodia can be made to form logic
> gates, enabling the construction of biological computers. In particular,
> plasmodia placed at entrances to special geometrically shaped mazes would
> emerge at exits of the maze that were consistent with truth tables for
> certain primitive logic connectives. However, as these constructions are
> based on theoretical models of the slime mould, in practice these results do
> not scale to allow for actual computation. When the primitive logic gates
> are connected to form more complex functions, the plasmodium ceased to
> produce results consistent with the expected truth tables.

~~~
chewxy
This begs the question: at what point a computation is simply an optimization

~~~
bcaa7f3a8bbc
On the flip side, at what point a heuristic optimization becomes computation?

~~~
ecnahc515
Quantum computing is all about this. Run the program a bunch, record the
results and observe the interference patterns.

------
hhs
Please note: the "blob" is a protist, _Physarum polycephalum_ ,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physarum_polycephalum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physarum_polycephalum).

~~~
ceejayoz
The article, oddly, only states this in the photo caption. Not sure why.

~~~
slowmovintarget
Because it is not an article, it is essentially a press release for a museum
exhibit.

~~~
mcv
That doesn't make it any better. We know the blob is a slime mold and slime
holds are protists. They're weird and mysterious, sure, but the article makes
it sound like this is a completely new and unnamed discovery. They're very
careful to avoid the words 'slime mold' and 'protist', which really should be
in there.

~~~
slowmovintarget
That's my point. An article would explain why the claims hold true and
summarize what is actually known about the organism. What's linked is a couple
of paragraphs that seems to regurgitate some copy from elsewhere. It isn't
reporting, and it is isn't an article, where they present a story of interest.

It's just a press release for the museum, seemingly copied, and ought to be
identified as such.

------
djsumdog
Slime mold is interesting. There's one species that, if you assemble food
sources in the population densities found in Tokyo, will grow to look very
similar to the Tokyo subway system:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwKuFREOgmo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwKuFREOgmo)

~~~
thaumasiotes
There are causal paths from population density to subway layout and from
subway layout to population density, but one of those paths is significantly
more responsive than the other. Population density constantly adjusts to local
circumstances such as transit access; subway layout adjusts in very expensive
bursts. A subway tunnel once built is not going to move 30 meters to the left
even if that would obviously be a better location.

So it seems pretty likely to me that the population density of Tokyo is more a
result than a cause of Tokyo's subway layout. This is backwards from the slime
mold experiment, where the layout is caused by the resource density.

~~~
samvher
Interesting thought that I had not considered. But I'm also not sure I share
your belief that the population density is more a result than a cause. The
whole fact that adjusting the subway is very expensive suggests to me that
there needs to be a population worth serving prior to construction. Seems like
a bit of a chicken/egg problem, would be interesting to see some population
stats pre/post subway construction.

------
mpiedrav
Reminds me of "Doctor Diagoras", a short story by Stanislaw Lem. Also known
for the "Solaris" novel (adapted by Tarkovsky and Soderbergh)

We expect to find alien lifeforms out there, but plenty of species on Earth
remain to be discovered and studied. And rediscovered: finding out we
overlooked some particularly interesting/puzzling behavior in apparently
boring species, whose research might lead to breakthroughs in genetics,
computing, mathematics, etc.

------
xivzgrev
Anyone know what 720 sexes means?

~~~
ceejayoz
[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2017/11/06/fungus-...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2017/11/06/fungus-
genders/)

> Fungi, by contrast, keep it casual. To mate, all a fungus has to do is bump
> up against another member of its species and let their cells fuse together.
> S. commune uses a special kind of structure called a clamp connection to do
> this, and it allows them to exchange their cell’s nuclei, along with the
> genetic information inside. This keeps reproduction simple and means that a
> potentially huge number of sexes is possible — other fungi species have
> dozens or more, though S. commune is certainly an outlier.

> The “sexes” don’t really involve physical differences either, as we might
> think of when the word “sex” comes to mind. The variations are all in the
> genome, at two separate loci, or locations, each of which has two alleles,
> or alternate forms. The loci are called A and B and the alleles are termed
> “alpha” and “beta.” That makes four possible sexes, but there’s another
> twist. Every A-alpha/beta and B-alpha/beta can have many different variants,
> called specificities. It amounts to more than 339 specificities for A and 64
> for B. Putting those two together yields thousands of possible unique sexes.

> The fungus can mate with any specificity as long as it’s different somewhere
> on both A and B. So, two prospective mates could both have the same A-beta
> and B-alpha, but have different A-alphas and B-betas and they’d be fine to
> hook up. If they shared A-alpha and A-beta, though, their pheromones
> wouldn’t be compatible, meaning that they couldn’t carry out the
> reproductive process. That leaves a ton of options for mating, though, and
> essentially means that anyone a fungus meets is fair game for sexy time.

~~~
mcv
But are those real sexes? They do apparently have some sort of impact on
reproduction, but the only limitation seems to be that they can't mate with
someone who has the exact same structure of the these alleles.

Which makes me wonder if this might have developed not so much as a way to
help reproduction, but as a guard against inbreeding.

~~~
occamsrazorwit
Yes. Sexes aren't defined as being based on different chromosomes or having
different physical anatomy (there are more mainstream examples of outliers for
both of these). It's just a classification system for reproduction
limitations.

------
ridaj
What does it mean that it "has the ability to learn"?

~~~
duxut_staglatz
See [0]:

> Audrey Dussutour and David Vogel had already trained slime molds to move
> past repellent but harmless substances (e.g. coffee, quinine, or salt) to
> reach their food. They now reveal that a slime mold that has learned to
> ignore salt can transmit this acquired behavior to another simply by fusing
> with it.

> To achieve this, the researchers taught more than 2,000 slime molds that
> salt posed no threat. In order to reach their food, these slime molds had to
> cross a bridge covered with salt. This experience made them habituated slime
> molds. Meanwhile, another 2,000 slime molds had to cross a bridge bare of
> any substance. They made up the group of naive slime molds.

> After this training period, the scientists grouped slime molds into
> habituated, naive, and mixed pairs. Paired slime molds fused together where
> they came into contact.

> The new, fused slime molds then had to cross salt-covered bridges.

> To the researchers' surprise, the mixed slime molds moved just as fast as
> habituated pairs, and much faster than naive ones, suggesting that knowledge
> of the harmless nature of salt had been shared.

> This held true for slime molds formed from 3 or 4 individuals. No matter how
> many fused, only 1 habituated slime mold was needed to transfer the
> information.

> To check that transfer had indeed taken place, the scientists separated the
> slime molds 1 hour and 3 hours after fusion and repeated the bridge
> experiment. Only naive slime molds that had been fused with habituated slime
> molds for 3 hours ignored the salt; all others were repulsed by it.

> This was proof of learning.

> When viewing the slime molds through a microscope, the scientists noticed
> that, after 3 hours, a vein formed at the point of fusion. This vein is
> undoubtedly the channel through which information is shared.

[0] [http://www.cnrs.fr/en/blob-can-learn-and-
teach](http://www.cnrs.fr/en/blob-can-learn-and-teach)

------
rv-de
If we talk about similarities to animals it should be mentioned that slime
molds actively move.

"In nature, slime moulds actively move around searching for bacteria or fungi,
which they subsequently engulf. Slime moulds can achieve speeds up to 5 cm/h"
[1]

1:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3025689/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3025689/)

------
Bajeezus
I’m unable to find more details. Does anyone have anything else on this
creature?

How long has this been studied? What is its scientific name? Where did it come
from?

~~~
goldenkey
Looks related to slime molds if you asked me.

~~~
ceejayoz
It _is_ a slime mold.

------
lbotos
Made me think of Bourne:
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31451186-borne](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31451186-borne)

------
trqx
So, how would one make this or fungi interact with a raspberry? an array of
capacity sensors? camera?

------
major505
how the hell a organism has 720 sexes?

It probably has no sex at all, and is some king of hemaphrodite orgnanism or
something that just reproduces with something more simple like
parthenogenesis?

~~~
occamsrazorwit
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21277742](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21277742)

tl;dr: There are 720 variations of the animal that have different sexual
reproduction limitations with each other. They have the same anatomy but
differ on the DNA level.

~~~
major505
If an organism have enouth DNA diference that dosen`t allow it to reproduce
with another, that would not make it another species?

~~~
occamsrazorwit
No. It's just a small part of the DNA (like male vs female in most animals).
The organism that can't reproduce with another organism still came from two of
the same organisms.

------
AceJohnny2
When did Reuters get so sensationalistic? I remember years ago when they were
the matter-of-fact news agency that other journalists got their info from and
built their sensational articles around.

From TFA:

> _This newest exhibit of the Paris Zoological Park, which goes on display to
> the public on Saturday, has no mouth, no stomach, no eyes, yet it can detect
> food and digest it._

> _The blob also has almost 720 sexes, can move without legs or wings and
> heals itself in two minutes if cut in half._

Yeah, it's a slime mo(u)ld, we get it. You don't need to get all carnie
shouter about it.

Back to my original question, when did Reuters decide their strategic shift
into their own souped-up content?

~~~
LeoPanthera
It's been that way for quite a while - I prefer AP for my "wire" news source.
They're relatively unbiased and they have a good iOS app.

------
romaniitedomum
Leaves unanswered the important question: what gender has L'Académie française
assigned the French noun for this thing.

~~~
guessmyname
> _Leaves unanswered the important question: what gender has L 'Académie
> française assigned the French noun for this thing._

I am confident to say it is _“Le Blob”_ due to the “o” in the its name, so it
would be male following grammatical gender rules.

------
hyperpallium
My horror film: _I have no brain and I must think_

~~~
DonHopkins
Harlan Elison's autobiography? ;)

------
noway421
Relatable

------
ohiovr
Sounds like an Apple perhiperal adaptor hell for reproduction.

