A bright yellow slime mould that can grow to several metres in
diameter has been put in charge of a scrabbling, six-legged robot.

The Physarum polycephalum
slime, which naturally shies away from light, controls the robot’s
movement so that it too keeps out of light and seeks out dark places in
which to hide itself.

Klaus-Peter
Zauner at the University of Southampton, UK, who developed the
slime-controlled bot with colleagues from Kobe University in
south-central Japan, says the idea is to find simpler ways to control a
robot’s behaviour.

"The computers we have today are very good for what we built them for," he told New Scientist. "But, in a complex or paradoxical environment, things tend not to work out."

By Will Knight

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