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.

Monte Carlo Simulation on Growth of Antibody-Antigen Complexes： the Role of Unequal Reactivity

Growth of Antibody-Antigen complexes in a multivalent Antibody-Antigen system is studied by the Monte Carlo simulation method. The validity of the algorithm is first demonstrated for the case of the equal reactivity, then the simulation is presented for the case of unequal reactivity. It is shown that the influence of the unequal reactivity on the critical point, size distribution and the weight-average binding degree is significant. Especially, the gelation regions for the cases of unequal reactivity are studied, which can provide some useful clues for the immunological experiments.

Noise Effects on Temperature Encoding of Neuronal Spike Trains in a Cold Receptor

We examine how noise interacts with encoding mechanisms of neuronal stimulus in a cold receptor. From ISI series and bifurcation diagrams it is shown that there are considerable differences in interval distributions and impulse patterns caused by purely deterministic simulations and noisy simulations. The ISI-distance can be used as an effective and powerful way to measure the noise effects on spike trains of the cold receptor quantitatively. It is also found that spike trains observed in cold receptors can be more strongly affected by noise for low temperatures than for high temperatures in some aspects; meanwhile, the spike train has greater variability with increasing noise intensity.

Effect of Time Delay on Stochastic Tumor Growth

We study the dynamics of tumor cell growth with time-delayed feedback driven by multiplicative noise in an asymmetrical bistable potential well. For a small delay time, the analytical solutions of the probability distribution and the first passage time show that, with the increasing delay time, the peak of the probability distribution in a lower population state would increase, but in a higher population state it decreases. It is shown that the multiplicative noise and the time delay play opposite roles in the tumor cell growth.

On Building Practical Biocomputers for Real-world Applications： Receptacles for Culturing Slime Mould Memristors and Component Standardisation

Our application of bionic engineering is novel： we are interested in developing hybrid hardware-wetware systems for music. This paper introduces receptacles for culturing Physarum polycephalum-based memristors that are highly accessible to the creative practitioner. The myxomycete Physarum polycephalum is an amorphous unicellular organism that has been found to exhibit memristive properties. Such a discovery has potential to allow us to move towards engineering electrical systems that encompass Physarum polycephalum components. To realise this potential, it is necessary to address some of the constraints associated with harnessing living biological entities in systems for real-time application. Within the paper, we present 3D printed receptacles designed to standardise both the production of components and memristive observations. Subsequent testing showed a significant decrease in growth time, increased lifespan, and superior similarity in component-to-component responses. The results indicate that our receptacle design may provide means of implementing hybrid electrical systems for music technology.