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By using brainless yellow slime to trace a surprisingly accurate map of the Canadian highway system, Queen’s University professor Selim Akl claims to have found evidence that the fungus can act a kind of natural computer.

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On a map of Canada, Mr. Akl placed rolled oats over each of the country’s major population centres, along with a dollop of slime mould over Toronto.

Over two to five days, the mold formed thin yellow tubes to reach out to the rolled oats, creating a fungal approximation of Canadian highways.

“In all experiments slime mould approximates all but Vancouver to Calgary links of Canadian highways networks,” wrote Mr. Akl in a paper detailing the experiment, which is due to be published in the International Journal of Natural Computing Research.

“By showing species as low as slime mold can compute a network as complex as the Canadian highway system, we were able to provide some evidence that nature computes,” said Mr. Akl in a Queen’s University release.

In the future, said the study, slime mould could be used to help design highway and other transportation networks.

Previous studies have applied the slime mold method to transportation networks throughout Europe, Africa and South Asia. So far, Canada has emerged as one of the most accurate.

National Post