Towards Physarum Robots: Computing and Manipulating on Water Surface

Plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum is an ideal biological substrate for implementing concurrent anu parauel computation, including combinatorial geometry and optimization on graphs. The scoping experiments on Physarum computing in conditions of minimal friction, on the water surface were performed. The laboratory and computer experimental results show that plasmodium of Physarum is capable of computing a basic spanning tree and manipulating of light-weight objects. We speculate that our results pave the pathways towards the design and implementation of amorphous biological robots.

Sounds Synthesis with Slime Mould of Physarum Polycephalum

This paper introduces a novel application of bionic engineering： a bionic musical instrument using Physarum polycephalum. Physarum polycephalum is a huge single cell with thousands of nuclei, which behaves like a giant amoeba. During its foraging behavior this plasmodium produces electrical activity corresponding to different physiological states. We developed a method to render sounds from such electrical activity and thus represent spatio-temporal behavior of slime mould in a form apprehended auditorily. The electrical activity is captured by various electrodes placed on a Petri dish containing the cultured slime mold. Sounds are synthesized by a bank of parallel sinusoidal oscillators connected to the electrodes. Each electrode is responsible for one partial of the spectrum of the resulting sound. The behavior of the slime mould can be controlled to produce different timbres.

A Cilia-inspired Closed-loop Sensor-actuator Array

Cilia are finger-like cell-surface organelles that are used by certain varieties of aquatic unicellular organisms for motility, sensing and obj ect manipulation. Initiated by internal generators and external mechanical and chemical stimuli, coordinated undulations of cilia lead to the motion of a fluid surrounding the organism. This motion transports micro-particles towards an oral cavity and provides motile force. Inspired by the emergent properties of cilia possessed by the pond organism P. caudatum, we propose a novel smart surface with closed-loop control using sensor-actuators pairings that can manipulate objects. Each vibrating motor actuator is controlled by a localised microcontroller which utilises proximity sensor information to initiate actuation. The circuit boards are designed to be plug-and-play and are infinitely up-scalable and reconfigurable. The smart surface is capable of moving objects at a speed of 7.2 millimetres per second in forward or reverse direction. Further development of this platform will include more anatomically similar biomimetic cilia and control.

Bio-Imitation of Mexican Migration Routes to the USA with Slime Mould on 3D Terrains

Plasmodium ofPhysarum polycephalum （P. polycephalum） is a large single cell visible by an unaided eye. It shows sophisticated behavioural traits in foraging for nutrients and developing an optimal transport network of protoplasmic tubes spanning sources of nutrients. When placed in an environment with distributed sources of nutrients the cell computes＇ an optimal graph spanning the nutrients by growing a network of protoplasmic tubes. P. polycephalum imitates development ofman-made transport networks of a country when configuration of nutrients represents major urban areas, We employed this feature of the slime mould to imitate mexican migration to USA. The Mexican migration to USA is the World＇s larger migration system. We bio-physically imitated the migration using slime mould P. poIycephalum. In laboratory experiments with 3D Nylon terrains of USA we imitated development of migratory routes from Mexico-USA border to ten urban areas with high concentration of Mexican migrants. From results of laboratory experiments we extracted topologies of migratory routes, and highlighted a role of elevations in shaping the human movement networks.

Slime mould imitates transport networks in China

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to study the slime mould Physarum polycephalum as an ideal biological substrate for transport networks.When presented with several sources of nutrients the slime mould propagates colonises the sources and spans them with a network of protoplasmic tubes allegedly optimised for transfer of nutrients and metabolites.Such formation of slime mould’s protoplasmic network resembles development of man-made transport systems.Thus,it sounds reasonable to compare the protoplasmic network with an established network of vehicular transport links to uncover potential(dis-)similarities between slime mould grown and man-made networks and shed more light onto general principle guiding growing biological and socio-engineering systems.Design/methodology/approach-The paper proceeds by representing major urban areas of China by oat flakes,inoculating the slime mould in Beijing,waiting till the slime mould colonises all urban areas,or colonises some and cease further propagation,and analysing the protoplasmic networks formed and comparing with man-made motorway network and planar proximity graphs.Findings-Laboratory experiments found that P.polycephalum provides a very good match for the Chinese motorway networks.Moreover,both the Chinese motorway network and the slime mould protoplasmic networks have minimum spanning trees and other proximity graphs as their sub-graphs.The experiments also identified the urban areas unlikely to be spanned by the protoplasmic networks,which may reflect hot-spots in existing challenges of modernising the motorways.Originality/value-The paper demonstrated the strong component of transport system built by slime mould of P.polycephalum on major urban areas of China consisting of one chain of four nodes and one planar graph with three leaves and eight cycles;the planar graph resides on the urban areas in the south-east part of China.

Evolutionary computational platform for the automatic discovery of nanocarriers for cancer treatment

We present the EVONANO platform for the evolution of nanomedicines with application to anti-cancer treatments.Our work aims to decrease both the time and cost required to develop nanoparticle designs.EVONANO includes a simulator to grow tumours,extract representative scenarios,and simulate nanoparticle transport through these scenarios in order to predict nanoparticle distribution.The nanoparticle designs are optimised using machine learning to efficiently find the most effective anti-cancer treatments.We demonstrate EVONANO with two examples optimising the properties of nanoparticles and treatment to selectively kill cancer cells over a range of tumour environments.Our platform shows how in silico models that capture both tumour and tissue-scale dynamics can be combined with machine learning to optimise nanomedicine.

Living mycelium composites discern weights via patterns of electrical activity

Fungal construction materials-substrates colonised by mycelium-are getting increased recog-nition as viable ecologically friendly alternatives to conventional building materials.A function-ality of the constructions made from fungal materials would be enriched if blocks with living mycelium,known for their ability to respond to chemical,optical and tactile stimuli,were in-serted.We investigated how large blocks of substrates colonised with mycelium of Ganoderma resinaceum responded to stimulation with heavy weights.We analysed details of the electrical re-sponses to the stimulation with weights and show that ON and OFF stimuli can be discriminated by the living mycelium composites and that a habituation to the stimulation occurs.Novelty of the results cast in the reporting on changes in electrical spiking activity of mycelium bound composites in response to a heavy loads.