The chemotaxis behavior of the plasmodial stage of the true slime mold Physarum Polycephalum was assessed when given a binary choice between two volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) placed in its environment. All possible binary combinations were tested between 19 separate VOCs selected due to their prevalence and biological activity in common plant and insect species. The slime mold exhibited pos...

A network design problem is to select a subset of links in a transport network that satisfy passengers or cargo transportation demands while minimizing the overall costs of the transportation. We propose a mathematical model of the foraging behaviour of slime mould P. polycephalum to solve the network design problem and construct optimal transport networks. In our algorithm, a traffic flow betw...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic bacterial pathogen most associated with infection of the lungs of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. It produces extracellular polysaccharides collectively referred to as slime that includes one specific virulence factor known as alginate. Current methods to measure the actual production of this slime require either expensive equipment, or they are not qua...

Slime moulds are well studied organisms in biology. They are some of the simplest organisms that exhibit complex emergent behaviour. Although individual organisms interact with the environment only by following local rules, slime moulds produce a collective behaviour on a global scale. The modelling of slime mould patterns provides a good testbed for studying emergent behaviour. We have simulat...

Plasmodium of slime mould Physarum polycephalum is a large single celled organism visible unaided by the eye. This slime mould is capable of optimising the shape of its protoplasmic networks in spatial configurations of attractants and repellents. Such adaptive behaviour can be interpreted as computation. When exposed to attractants and repellents, Physarum changes patterns of its electrical ac...

Eight strains of Staphylococcus epidermidis were isolated from clinical specimens and were subjected to the tests for encapsulation, slime-production, mouse-virulence, capsular-typing and adherence to the plastic surface, the renal cells and the bladder epithelial cells. With the intraperitoneal injection of these strains into mice, three encapsulated strains were observed in mouse-virulent, wh...

Slime molds are fascinating organisms, they can either live as an organism consisting out of a single cell or they can form a multi-cellular organism. Therefore from the biological point of view, the slime molds are studied in order to understand the evolutionary step from a single cell organism to a multi-cellular organism. Studies have shown that the behavior of cooperating single cell organi...