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.

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.