This is supercool! One of the most 'wow' things I've seen in a long time.

Japanese and British researchers used yellow slime mold Physarum polycephalum to remodel the railway network on Tokyo's map. They used oat flakes to represent cities around Tokyo, and the slime grew a network of threads that model the rail system almost identically to how it's built in real life.

The fun part is that the original rail network was designed by the world's top engineers, those japanese super-brainiacs. So in the future, network engineering can be left for fungi? Engineers can all retire, or take up fungus cultivation. I can already see this as part of the global "slow" and "cocooning" trends. No more busy salarymen in the morning trains, but happy gardeners enjoying home-grown food with the family.




Image from Science/AAAS


But really, what's the point with this research?

According to Mark Fricker of the University of Oxford, "such a malleable system may be useful for creating networks that need to change over time, such as short-range wireless systems of sensors that would provide early warnings of fire or flood. Because these sensors are destroyed when disaster strikes, the network needs to efficiently re-route information quickly. Decentralized, adaptable networks would also be important for soldiers in battlefields or swarms of robots exploring hazardous environments, Fricker says.

The new model may also help researchers answer biological questions,such as how blood vessels grow to support tumors, Fricker says."

Quoted text from Wired