Slime Molds, did you know...

[Ken Ramos]

that they have been used in the application of making video games! Read about it here , last paragraph at the bottom of the page.

[rjlittlefield]

Hhmm... I remember reading flock-of-bird equations when they were first published, about 30 years ago, and it's odd but I can't recall a thing about slime molds in those articles. Ah well, I forget so much these days...

However, I have no doubt that the equations are the same, and the story does make a nice position of prominence for the myxo's, even if it is a bit apocryphal.

--Rik

[Bill D]

That would explain my son's bedroom... it must have escaped!
_________________
Bill

[rjlittlefield]

I did a bit more tracking down, and it seems that the story is correct. See http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1&pid=410897&agid=2 , which says that Segel and Keller published a seminal paper on modeling slime mold in 1969. That would be just a few years before I first saw flock-of-birds animation at a SIGGRAPH conference.

Cool! I can hardly wait to tell my gaming friends about some of the origins of their amusement.

--Rik

[Ken Ramos]

A very informative piece there Rik, a very good and interesting read indeed. That really makes my interest in these creatures to grow even more. To think something like the lowely slime mold may hold a myrid of technological possibilites for the future. Biomathmatics, never realized such a thing existed but then again... I never have been good at math...of any kind .

[Mike B in OKlahoma]

I remember reading about the bird stuff around 1977 or so...Interesting that it applies to other things as well.
_________________
Mike Broderick
Oklahoma City, OK, USA

Constructive critiques of my pictures, and reposts in this forum for purposes of critique are welcome

"I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul....My mandate includes weird bugs."
--Calvin

[Carl_Constantine]

isn't it essentially "game of life" type equations which should work in this case.
_________________
Carl B. Constantine