Who is smarter? This common slime mold, or Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann? If you said the slime mold, you’re right!
This Discover science blog post by British science writer Ed Young explains how slime molds use a mesh of input from their component parts as they interact with the surrounding environment. Given a choice between two sources of food, a slime mold plasmodium will opt for the one that appears to be the best “value” for the organism, but if presented with three choices, the mold will opt for the middle-value food source, even if it previously rejected it in the earlier set of two choices. He explains this in terms of human behaviors by using the well-known phenomenon of restaurants putting very expensive wines on their wine lists to encourage people to buy bottles that have higher markups. This decision-making process of “comparative valuation” lets slime molds constantly evaluate and navigate their environment in a complex manner not unlike higher life forms, making decisions based on actual real-world, real-time information. That’s more than you can say for Bachmann and crew.
