Today I read a paper titled “Slime mould solves maze in one pass … assisted by gradient of chemo-attractants”
The abstract is:
Plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum is a large cell, visible by unaided eye, which exhibits sophisticated patterns of foraging behaviour
The plasmodium’s behaviour is well interpreted in terms of computation, where data are spatially extended configurations of nutrients and obstacles, and results of computation are networks of protoplasmic tubes formed by the plasmodium
In laboratory experiments and numerical simulation we show that if plasmodium of Physarum is inoculated in a maze’s peripheral channel and an oat flake (source of attractants) in a the maze’s central chamber then the plasmodium grows toward target oat flake and connects the flake with the site of original inoculation with a pronounced protoplasmic tube
The protoplasmic tube represents a path in the maze
The plasmodium solves maze in one pass because it is assisted by a gradient of chemo-attractants propagating from the target oat flake