Physarum polycephalum is a unicellular slime mould that has been intensely studied owing to its ability to solve mazes, find shortest paths, generate Steiner trees, share knowledge and remember past events and the implied applications to unconventional computing. The CELL model is a cellular automaton introduced in Gunji et al . (Gunji et al. 2008 J. Theor. Biol. 253 , 659–667 ( doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2008.04.017 )) that models Physarum ’s amoeboid motion, tentacle formation, maze solving and network creation. In the present paper, we extend the CELL model by spawning multiple CELLs, allowing us to understand the interactions between multiple cells and, in particular, their mobility, merge speed and cytoplasm mixing. We conclude the paper with some notes about applications of our work to modelling the rise of present-day civilization from the early nomadic humans and the spread of trends and information around the world. Our study of the interactions of this unicellular organism should further the understanding of how P. polycephalum communicates and shares information.
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A Physarum-inspired approach to the Euclidean Steiner tree problem
This paper presents a novel biologically-inspired explore-and-fuse approach to solving a large array of problems. The inspiration comes from Physarum, a unicellular slime mold capable of solving the traveling salesman and Steiner tree problems. Besides exhibiting individual intelligence,
- PAR ID:
- 10370092
- Publisher / Repository:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Scientific Reports
- Volume:
- 12
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2045-2322
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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