TECHNOLOGY FOR CHANGE

Slime Mold May Predict Future of Rail Systems

Dave Greenfield | Date: 03-16-10 | Comments

A mold that grows in lawns, in forests and on dead deciduous logs all over the world may be the key for designing highly efficient networks.

A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford used mold to organically mimic the design of a Japanese ultra-efficient rail system.

Researchers arranged oat flakes in the pattern of the Japanese cities around Tokyo. Single-celled slime mold was introduced to this oat ode to Japan. At first, the mold surrounded the oats evenly, as expected. Within hours, the mold began to construct networks according to a pattern. The mold�s goal, if the insentient mold can be said to have a goal, was to create the most efficient means of transporting the nutrients. Incredibly, the mold built networks for transporting nutrients that are almost identical to the layout of Japan�s rail system.

Study co-author Mark Fricker of the University of Oxford notes that the rail system surrounding Tokyo has to accommodate millions of passengers each day. �In contrast, the slime mold has no central brain or indeed any awareness of the overall problem it is trying to solve, but manages to produce a structure with similar properties to the real rail network,� Fricker states.

Slime mold could help make more efficient and responsive networks, not only for rail systems but for other types of networks, such as communications systems. The study could also help clue researchers in to how blood vessels grow into complex and strong networks to support a tumor. Slime mold provides invaluable insight into how these networks are formed, and why.

In the future, slime mold may help build efficient, adaptable and highly sophisticated rail systems. Researchers are able to use the study�s data to create a description of how networks are formed. At first, the network extends everywhere. Continual refinement produces more efficient routes, opening more routes for the places with more cargo (whether nutrients or passengers) and closing those in less active areas.