Human society is constantly solving problems like how to most efficiently move people, resources, energy, and information.
Problems that scientists are realizing a single-celled brainless slime mold might be able to solve better than us.
If you've taken a walk through the forest, you may have noticed webs of a yellow substance growing across dead trees and on piles of fallen leaves.
Moving at a glacial pace, this slime slowly consumes the microorganisms living on these decaying materials.
And while this brainless blob may seem incredibly primitive in its structure, its behavior is another thing entirely.
This unique organism is called a slime mold, and as it traverses the forest floor in search of food, it makes decisions based on a complicated trade-off between the risks, its hunger level, and the quality of food patches.
It's been shown to demonstrate both learning and memory, and acts in such a clever way that scientists consider it to have a unique form of primitive intelligence.
In fact, its abilities are so great that researchers are using its foraging methods to solve real-world optimization problems, such as the shortest path between cities and the most efficient transportation network, challenges that typically require a sophisticated computer algorithm.
But the applications for slime molds don't stop there.
Scientists are even using them as one of the most essential components in a computer, and are actually building computer chips containing this slimy substance.
