What's it like to think like a slime mold? Join Lisa and American writer, scholar, and film critic Steven Shaviro for a wildly erudite and imaginative look at the nature of consciousness in Physarum polycephalum, otherwise known as "The Blob," a brainless amoeba that thinks, learns, and inspires so much more than science fiction.

Want to follow up on our sources or watch any of the videos we mention? Go to ThisAnimalLife.com and click on Show Notes.

Barnett, Heather, “What humans can learn from semi-intelligent slime,” Jul 17, 2014.  A TED talk about slime mold.

The Blob: A Genius Without a Brain (TV Movie). Directed by Jacques Mitsch, 2019.

Can Slime Mould Solve Mazes?, BBC Earth Lab, Dec 5, 2018. Reproduction of the Tokyo Metro study.

The Creeping Garden Documentary.Directed by Tim Grabham and Jasper Sharp, 2014. Click here for the trailer.

Dussutour, Audrey, “Le Blob,” Tout ce que vous avez toujours voulu savoir sur le blob sans jamais oser le demander, Des Equateurs, April 27th 2017.

Dussutour, Audrey, “Decision-making in Slime Molds,” ACM Collective Intelligence 2020, June 2020.

Eaglemann, David, Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain, Pantheon Books, 2020.

Hollowman, Luke M.S., “Anesthesia Works on Plants Too, and We Don’t Know Why,” Medium, July 2020.

“Mould Time-lapse – The Great British Year: Episode 4,” Preview – BBC One. Oct 18, 2013.

Nagel, Thomas. “What is it like to be a bat?” The Philosophical Review. 83 (4), 1974. [Link to Wikipedia page].

Pollan, Michael, The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World. Random House, 2001.

Shaviro, Steven, Discognition Repeater, 2016.

“Slime Molds: No Brains No Feet No Problem” PBS News Hour, April 2012.

The Slime Mould Collective “The Slime Mould Collective is a portal for interesting, progressive and ground breaking research and creative practice working with the simple yet intelligent organisms. If you are involved with or interested in slime moulds as a scientist, artist, designer, teacher, philosopher… (etc), please join and share what you do.” Can put you in touch with sources of slime mold.

Tchaikovsky, Adrian, Children of Time,  PanMacmillan, 2015. The mind-blowing spider novel.

Tchaikovsky, Adrian, Children of Ruin, Macmillan Digital Audio, 2019. The super-cool octopus novel that includes an all-consuming slime-like creature.