The Evolution-Defying Slime Mold

Stormie Waters and her betrothed Roland Meadows stopped by my place, and they commenced to jawing about the yellow stuff on a dead log in the woods. Since I had written a post on slime mold a spell back, it was somewhat familiar to me.

The article featured below has some information that is quite interesting. Rather disgusting name, slime mold. There are others, including the blob and social amoebas. The slime part is true, but mold is incorrect. It used to be consider among the fungi but it defies classification.

Slime Mold, Pexels / Chris F.

In addition to being extremely difficult to classify, it acts like a creature with intelligence — but without a brain! It can find its way through a maze, and scientists are studying how it can be used in human applications (biomimetics). It is interesting how it sends out...probes, I guess...in search of nutrients. Good eats here? Fine, stay attached. Not so good? Pull back, and leave a bit of slime to mark the area as useless.

Darwin's disciples will tell us that it evolved billions of years ago, but that is a historical statement of faith, not empirical evidence. Also, it is unchanged after all those Darwin years and no "evolutionary pressures" or whatever? Not hardly! (They pulled the same stunt with the paddlefish and other living fossils.) The logical conclusion is that this organism, creature, or whatever it is was designed by the Creator.

Despite consisting of only a single biological cell, the slime mould Physarum polycephalum can attain huge sizes. It frequently takes the form of an amoeba-like creature several centimetres long, and on occasion even stretching up to several metres. It deservedly features as the largest cell on earth in the Guinness Book of World Records.

But the headaches it causes evolutionary scientists are less well publicized. “Existing at the crossroads between the kingdoms of animals, plants and fungi”, it has long defied evolutionists’ attempts to categorize it and the other slime moulds. In some ways its life cycle resembles that of a fungus, but partially also that of certain bacteria. Adding to the complication, Physarum makes its own cellulose, like plants do. Mostly, though, Physarum lives and feeds like a one-celled ‘animal’.

To read the rest, slide on over to "Smart slime."