Slime Moulds

In Our Time: Science

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss slime mould, a basic organism that grows on logs, cowpats and compost heaps. Scientists have found difficult to categorise slime mould: in 1868, the biologist Thomas Huxley asked: ‘Is this a plant, or is it an animal? Is it both or is it neither?’ and there is a great deal scientists still don’t know about it. But despite not having a brain, slime mould can solve complex problems: it can find the most efficient way round a maze and has been used to map Tokyo’s rail network. Researchers are using it to help find treatments for cancer, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, and computer scientists have designed an algorithm based on slime mould behaviour to learn about dark matter. It’s even been sent to the international space station to help study the effects of weightlessness. With

Jonathan Chubb Professor of Quantitative Cell Biology at University College, London

Elinor Thompson Reader in microbiology and plant science at the University of Greenwich

And

Merlin Sheldrake Biologist and writer

Producer: Eliane Glaser

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Greg Jenner. I'm the host of Your Dead to Me, where the best names in comedy and history
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0:45.7	This is in our time from BBC Radio 4, and this is one of more than a thousand episodes you can find on BBC Sounds and on our website.
0:50.2	If you scroll down the page for this edition, you can find a reading list to go with it.
0:51.7	I hope you enjoy the programme.
0:55.9	Hello, if you've ever seen a mysterious white or yellow blob on your garden compost heap or on a fallen tree in the local park, you'll have come across
1:01.1	slime mold. It's a single-celled organism that scientists have struggled to categorize. In 1868,
1:08.4	the biologist Thomas Huxley asked, is this a plant or is it an animal? Is it both? Or is it neither?
1:15.4	Despite not having a brain, slime mold is clever enough to find the shortest way through a maze,
1:21.3	and scientists have used it to design rail networks, map dark matter in outer space,
1:25.8	and research treatments for cancer and Parkinson's
1:28.7	and Alzheimer's disease. When we're to discuss slime mold are Eleanor Thompson, reader in microbiology
1:35.0	and plant science at the University of Greenwich, Jonathan Chubb, Professor of Quantative Cell Biology
1:40.5	at University College London, and Merlin Sheldrake, biologist, writer and research associate
1:45.7	at the Brough University in Amsterdam and Oxford University. Jonathan Chubb, what is slime mold?
1:53.1	It's actually quite a vague, fuzzy term that encompasses a lot of different species. They superficially
	...

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