Amoebas are tiny sacks of watery liquid with thin membranes and as living things go they are completely and utterly brainless. However it doesn't stop them from being not only quite intelligent, but also real good team players.
Slime mold amoebas crawl around the forest eating decaying leaves and rotting wood. When the food becomes scarce they all gather in one place for a family meeting. Then they squeeze tightly together forming a shape like a slug. This slug crawls around like a real slug, and all the amoebas composing it cooperate remarkably well - they don't fight about which is the front and which is the back and move smoothly front end forward. When the slug finds a spot it likes (somehow all the amoebas must be in agreement about that too), it stops crawling and starts stretching up as high as it can. Again, there is no fighting among the amoebas about who gets to be on top, and who sacrifices himself to become a part of the stalk. The ones on top are the lucky ones, because they get to become the spores and to fly away to start a new family, like the seeds of the dandelion or the ant queens.
Now it gets even crazier! The amoebas don't eat all of the yammy bacterias they like so much, but bring some with them to the slug-forming fest to eat later, and, some scientists suspect, may be packing some inside the spores for in case there is nothing to eat when they land.
I find it very interesting that the simplest single-celled creatures on earth can think, organize, assume different tasks as needed, and even bring lunch to work!
And if these amoebas can form a shape that looks like a slug and moves like a slug, without the confusion about which end if the front and which end is the back, and then can form another shape like a tiny Space Needle, then what's stopping some species of slime mold from forming a shape that looks and moves like a human!
And this book is for the super geeks:
Slime mold amoebas crawl around the forest eating decaying leaves and rotting wood. When the food becomes scarce they all gather in one place for a family meeting. Then they squeeze tightly together forming a shape like a slug. This slug crawls around like a real slug, and all the amoebas composing it cooperate remarkably well - they don't fight about which is the front and which is the back and move smoothly front end forward. When the slug finds a spot it likes (somehow all the amoebas must be in agreement about that too), it stops crawling and starts stretching up as high as it can. Again, there is no fighting among the amoebas about who gets to be on top, and who sacrifices himself to become a part of the stalk. The ones on top are the lucky ones, because they get to become the spores and to fly away to start a new family, like the seeds of the dandelion or the ant queens.
Now it gets even crazier! The amoebas don't eat all of the yammy bacterias they like so much, but bring some with them to the slug-forming fest to eat later, and, some scientists suspect, may be packing some inside the spores for in case there is nothing to eat when they land.
I find it very interesting that the simplest single-celled creatures on earth can think, organize, assume different tasks as needed, and even bring lunch to work!
And if these amoebas can form a shape that looks like a slug and moves like a slug, without the confusion about which end if the front and which end is the back, and then can form another shape like a tiny Space Needle, then what's stopping some species of slime mold from forming a shape that looks and moves like a human!
And this book is for the super geeks:
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