Brainless Slime Mold Remembers Where it's Been [Video]
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CREDIT: Tanya Latty
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University of Sydney researchers have found that brainless slime molds can remember using an external spatial memory. They use excreted chemicals as a memory system. The researchers tested the slime mold's ability to navigate its way out of a U-shaped barrier. As the slime mold (Physarum polycephalum) moves it leaves behind a thick mat of non-living, translucent, extracellular slime. What is most interesting is that the slime mold did not revisit areas it had already slimed. This suggests it can sense extracellular slime upon contact and therefore "remember" and avoid areas it has already explored.
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