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Slime mold mimics Canadian highway network

Date:
March 26, 2012
Source:
Queen's University
Summary:
A researcher placed rolled oats on a map of Canada, covering the major urban areas. One urban area held the slime mold. The slime mold reached out for the food, creating thin tubes that eventually formed a network mirroring the Canadian highway system.
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Queen's University professor Selim Akl has provided additional proof to the theory that nature computes.

Dr. Akl (School of Computing) placed rolled oats on a map of Canada, covering the major urban areas. One urban area held the slime mold. The slime mold reached out for the food, creating thin tubes that eventually formed a network mirroring the Canadian highway system.

"By showing species as low as slime mold can compute a network as complex as the Canadian highway system, we were able to provide some evidence that nature computes," says Dr. Akl.

Moving forward, Dr. Akl would like to collect more examples to support his claim that nature computes. He explains, for example, that the leaf of a plant a much great percentage of the light it receives from the sun than solar cells. The best engineered solar cells have an efficiency of only 35 per cent. Research into this area could lead to important practical applications.

Dr. Akl's study, co-authored by Andrew Adamatzky (University of the West of England, United Kingdom) is being published in the International Journal of Natural Computing Research and he is also serving on the program committee of a natural computing conference being held in Spain later this year.


Story Source:

Materials provided by Queen's University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


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Queen's University. "Slime mold mimics Canadian highway network." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 26 March 2012. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120326133635.htm>.
Queen's University. (2012, March 26). Slime mold mimics Canadian highway network. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 28, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120326133635.htm
Queen's University. "Slime mold mimics Canadian highway network." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120326133635.htm (accessed March 28, 2024).

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