Audrey Dussutour is speaking about the blob:
Blobs on the Mind
Lots of other people are speaking about the blob, too—about the blob and intelligence. The blob is also known as “slime mold.” Intelligence is known to make people curious.
Lots of this talking was inspired by the work of Toshiyuki Nakagaki and his colleagues, who been honored with two Ig Nobel Prizes.
The Two Slime Mold Ig Nobel Prizes
The 2008 Ig Nobel Prize for cognition was awarded to Toshiyuki Nakagaki of Hokkaido University, Japan, Hiroyasu Yamada of Nagoya, Japan, Ryo Kobayashi of Hiroshima University, Atsushi Tero of Presto JST, Akio Ishiguro of Tohoku University, and Ágotá Tóth of the University of Szeged, Hungary, for discovering that slime molds can solve puzzles.
The 2010 Ig Nobel Prize for transportation was awarded to Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi of Japan, and Dan Bebber, Mark Fricker of the UK, for using slime mold to determine the optimal routes for railroad tracks.
For details of those Ig Nobel Prize winning experiments see:
“Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design,” Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Dan P. Bebber, Mark D. Fricker, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi, Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Science, Vol. 327. no. 5964, January 22, 2010, pp. 439-42. [VIDEO]
REFERENCE: “Intelligence: Maze-Solving by an Amoeboid Organism,” Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, and Ágota Tóth, Nature, vol. 407, September 2000, p. 470. [VIDEO]