slime mold

When I was a kid I used to love reading C. L. Stong's column, The Amateur Scientist, in Scientific American each month. One of my all-time favorites was the one about slime molds. I'd told my nephew about them a short time ago, and realised that these things are so damn weird that my explanation sounded fictional. They have features of animals and of plants. Sometimes they act like single-celled organisms, and other times like multicellular ones. They are very common, but hardly anyone knows about them.

Then the other day, after a short search through my stacks I found the issue of Scientific American containing the article -- January 1966. What surprised me was how much I'd forgotten; slime molds are even more bizarre than I remembered.

Nowadays you can't see this wonderful information for love or money anymore, so I lovingly converted it and present it here for your viewing pleasure.

Probably the weirdest living things you'll ever encounter: slime molds.