Cell fusion is a fundamental phenomenon observed in all eukaryotes. Cells can exchange resources such as molecules or organelles during fusion. In this paper, we ask whether a cell can also transfer an adaptive response to a fusion partner. We addressed this question in the unicellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum, in which cell-cell fusion is extremely common. Slime moulds are capable of ...

A plasmodium of acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum is a large single cell with many nuclei. Presented to a configuration of attracting and repelling stimuli a plasmodium optimizes its growth pattern and spans the attractants, while avoiding repellents, with efficient network of protoplasmic tubes. Such behaviour is interpreted as computation and the plasmodium as an amorphous growing b...

This paper introduces a novel application of bionic engineering: a bionic musical instrument using Physarum polycephalum. Physarum polycephalum is a huge single cell with thousands of nuclei, which behaves like a giant amoeba. During its foraging behavior this plasmodium produces electrical activity corresponding to different physiological states. We developed a method to render sounds from suc...

Recently, the slime mould algorithm (SMA) has become popular in function optimization, because it effectively uses exploration and exploitation to reach an optimal solution or near-optimal solution. However, SMA two random search agents from whole population decide future displacement direction best agents, which limits its exploration. To solve this problem, we investigate adaptive approach wh...

Computing a polygon defining a set of planar points is a classical problem of modern computational geometry. In laboratory experiments we demonstrate that a concave hull, a connected α-shape without holes, of a finite planar set is approximated by slime mould Physarum polycephalum. We represent planar points with sources of long-distance attractants and short-distance repellents and inoculate a...

The Slime mould algorithm (SMA) is a relatively new metaheuristic technique that was just presented. While the performance of newly proposed algorithms gives satisfactory results in optimization problems, combining recently with components different improves SMAs. In recent years, leader SMA (LSMA) and equilibrium optimizer (ESMA) methods, which combined algorithms, have been proposed. advantag...