Since the last three months we have been keeping and subculturing slime molds in the Biolab. We are working according to a roadmap with the eventual goal to develop a biological computer. There is a “white paper”

Current status

We have various problems:

1. all our cultures are contaminated;
2. we haven’t seen the slime molds move;
3. they don’t really look like the pictures on the Internet. :)

We think that this is mainly due to the humidity and cold we had in the winter. The temperature was around 7℃ and since there is a river flowing around and under our building, a lot of humidity. We are addressing this by building an incubator which can maintain the proverbial “room temperature”.

We had two iterations so far and working on a third:

1. Plastic barell with water tank heated by aquarium heater. Total failure.
2. Fridge with water tank heated by aquarium heater. We can maintain 14℃ in this contraption which is not enough.
3. The third design is should be soon described here soon.

Literature

• Introduction to Physarum Kit: came with the kit. Basic.
• Handbook of Slime Molds: look like essential reference.

Supplies

The best known source is the Carolina biological supply company in the US, which sells kits. We ordered to of these kits, but through a supplier in Madrid:

PSYMTEC MATERIAL TECNICO S.L.
C/ Cazalegas nº 5, Local
(entrada por C/ Ugena)
28025 MADRID
Tlf. 91 341 16 21 / 91 341 71 95
Fax. 91 746 41 95