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The Blob A Genius without a Brain (2020) [Full Movie] [Full Version]Full EP - Full
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00:14Two teenagers see it first, like a falling star from outer space.
00:20Boy, that was close.
00:221958. A terrifying extraterrestrial jelly threatens to engulf Earth and all its inhabitants.
00:31In a horror B-movie, The Blob makes its first-ever screen appearance.
00:37Look out, because soon, very soon, the most horrifying monster menace ever conceived will be oozing into this theatre.
00:49This creature, out of science fiction, has given its name to an actual living organism.
00:57One which has scientists baffled.
01:02The Blob is neither plant, animal nor mushroom.
01:07Yet this single-celled organism has been around on Earth for almost a billion years.
01:15It's one of the world's most primitive and most simple beings.
01:23And yet, behind its apparent simplicity, it has some truly incredible capacities.
01:31It has no eyes, no mouth, no stomach, no legs.
01:36Yet it can see, smell, digest and move around.
01:41It has neither nervous system nor brain, but it's capable of solving complex problems and even making strategies.
01:51It's scientific name is phisarum polycephalum, and now it's being studied by researchers all over the world.
02:02Their discoveries are taking us on a very strange journey indeed, leading us into a whole new field of science.
02:11One in which the word intelligence does not imply the need for a brain.
02:41One in which the word intelligence does not imply the need for a brain.
02:47One in which the word intelligence does not imply the need for a brain.
02:59At the very beginning of life on Earth, almost a billion years before Homo sapiens, and 500 million years before
03:08the plants,
03:08were the very first single-celled organisms.
03:13And among them was the blob.
03:19In the great tree of life, Physarum polycephalum has long been grouped in with the fungi.
03:27In fact, it is what's known as a slime mould.
03:37But although the blob shares a mushroom's liking for dark, humid places,
03:41and is usually found in shadowy undergrowth,
03:44it possesses one ability that's got mycologists scratching their heads.
03:50It can move.
03:58With no apparent means to do so, no legs, no propulsion system,
04:03the blob can get around, thanks to its network of veins, at a rate of one centimetre an hour.
04:11Yet when it's hungry, it can hit as much as four centimetres an hour.
04:18Just like in the movie, the blob is a glutton.
04:22It gorges on bacteria, yeasts and mushrooms.
04:29But the really impressive thing is that the blob is just a single cell,
04:34albeit an unusually large one, that can double in volume every day,
04:39and can reach several metres in diameter.
04:42It is one of the very rare cells that are visible to the naked eye.
04:52Audrey Dussetour is one of the world's leading specialists on the blob.
05:07She's a researcher at France's National Scientific Research Centre in Toulouse,
05:12and a Doctor of Ethology, the branch of biology that studies animal behaviour.
05:21She started out studying ants and their nutrition, until she had an unexpected encounter.
05:30The first time I met Phyzarome Polycephalome,
05:33it was when I was in post-doctorat in Australia.
05:36My research director at the time, Steve Simpson, who is a great specialist in nutrition,
05:40was writing a book on the nutrition that went from the insect to the human.
05:44And he told me, during a conversation,
05:46that it would be great to write a book on the cellulose to the human.
05:49And we discussed a little bit about the multicellular organism that we could test.
05:51And it needed a multicellular organism enough large to be observed.
05:58The first time he arrived in the laboratory,
06:00we were all a little disappointed,
06:02because it looked more like a old omelette,
06:03with browned eggs, than a multicellular organism.
06:06We took it, put it in a basket, and we forgot it until the end of the day.
06:10And then I understood the interest of such an organism,
06:12because when I opened the basket,
06:13the blob had escaped and started to cover the bottom of the basket.
06:23The blob had gone off in search of food.
06:28Such an astonishing cell would be a fascinating research subject
06:31for a specialist in animal behaviour.
06:37Her first notable publication revealed that when it comes to nutrition,
06:42the blob is a genius.
06:47In laboratory, the most scientists in the world feed it with the blocs.
06:52However, when we want to study how an animal regulate its nutritional needs,
06:56working on a unique food, the blocs of the blocs were a problem.
06:59So we had to create special recipes for blocs.
07:08So at the beginning, we had a little bit of a tartan,
07:10and we created the flans.
07:11We call them the flans,
07:13a kind of burnt cream,
07:14in which we will be able to modify the quantity of protein and sugar.
07:19And so, we created 35 different recipes,
07:22each characterized by a particular protein ratio of protein and sugar.
07:26We also created the concentration of nutrients in the flans.
07:32Audrey Dussetour's method enabled her to determine what the blob's ideal diet was,
07:38and create the very best pudding to help it grow,
07:44before setting it a few nutritional challenges.
07:58To observe the blob's choices,
08:03Audrey and her team used time-lapse photography.
08:09Images taken over periods of 24, 48 or even 72 hours
08:14allowed them to see just how the blob evolved
08:16when faced with a particular turn of events.
08:26What we did was we offered Phyzarome polycephalome
08:29cafeterias.
08:30So in this cafeteria, Phyzarome polycephalome
08:32had several flans,
08:34each characterized by a different sugar protein ratio
08:36and one of those flans corresponded to their optimum.
08:45The blob gropes around for a bit, ignores the less suitable puddings and goes for the
08:51optimal one.
09:03If none of the puddings contain the perfect ratio, the blob combines two of the imperfect
09:09ones, one of them too sugary, the other too high in protein.
09:36In humans and animals, nutritional needs are handled by the brain working alongside the
09:43stomach.
09:46The blob doesn't have a brain or a stomach, yet it can optimise the intake of those nutrients
09:51essential for its growth.
09:59Another remarkable phenomenon is that when conditions are very bad and there's no food
10:05left, the blob just dries out and becomes dormant.
10:12It can stay like that for up to two years.
10:18To bring it back to life, you just sprinkle it with water.
10:23When it wakes up, the blob's full of youthful vigour again and ready for new adventures.
10:39But Audrey de Soutour is not the first person to have studied this extraordinary organism.
11:04In Japan, they have a long tradition of studying slime moulds.
11:10Professor Toshiyuki Nakagaki of the University of Hokkaido is one of the third generation of Japanese researchers
11:18researchers to be thrilled by Faisaru.
11:30In the scientific community, they think of Professor Nakagaki as the blob master.
11:37He was the first to reveal the blob's extraordinary ability to move about.
11:45For him, as a biophysicist, single-celled organisms are fundamental to his work.
12:14The blob is not like any other cell.
12:18The blob is not like any other cell.
12:20It's not like any other experiments can be carried out on it.
12:22That means that Professor Nakagaki and his assistant, Daniel Shentz, can put it through
12:28tests usually reserved for animals, such as the labyrinth test.
12:40They place the blob in a maze along with a source of nutrition.
12:45Will it find its way?
12:54It deploys its network of veins to set off on the hunt for food.
12:59It doesn't get lost in the labyrinth.
13:03It finds what it's looking for.
13:15In a second experiment, a blob is meticulously positioned over the whole surface of the labyrinth.
13:32At the entrance and exit of the maze are some oat flakes, there to test the blob's ability to connect
13:39two different food sources.
13:47The blob's reaction is amazing.
13:52One by one, it eliminates all the wrong pathways.
13:57Soon, there's just one vein left linking the two food sources by the shortest route.
14:08The blob just passed the labyrinth test.
14:10By choosing the shortest path, it has optimised the transfer of nutrients into its organism.
14:21In view of this incredible result, Professor Nakagaki published an article in Nature magazine.
14:29It made waves.
14:32In 2008, he received the Ignoble Prize, an award given to serious scientific research into the most unlikely subjects.
14:42Research that makes you smile, then think.
14:52But the professor didn't stop at that.
14:54He wanted to study the network of veins that Physarum creates in order to hunt for food.
15:08Now, Physarum is a particularly interesting organism to study biological transportation networks,
15:13because it is basically an adaptive transportation network.
15:17That's what it is.
15:20So, if you want to study how network geometries and network layouts respond to the circumstances,
15:26then Physarum is an ideal organism to study these kinds of things.
15:32Professor Nakagaki and his teams decided to compare the networks created by the blob to an existing system,
15:39the Japanese railway network, unanimously recognised as one of the most efficient in the world.
15:48On a map of the Tokyo region, the principal towns have been replaced by oat flakes,
15:54while the blob is placed on the capital itself.
16:01Will Physarum be able to solve this one?
16:09The blob explores its environment, and as it discovers the oat flakes,
16:14permanently reconfigures its network of veins.
16:21It reinforces the links between the different food sources, as the other links disappear.
16:31The network the blob created is just as efficient and streamlined as the railway network.
16:47When it comes to planning an optimal network, the blob's the equal of any engineer.
16:53It makes the most efficient choices,
16:57and finds its way around with astonishing ease.
17:08Audrey Dussetour and her Australian colleagues have revealed one of the secrets of the blob's displacement mechanisms.
17:23When we look at Physarum polycephalum moving,
17:26what happens is that Physarum polycephalum never happens twice in the same place.
17:30So the question we asked is,
17:32is the blob not using a form of chemical trace to remember its environment?
17:41It's a strategy found in ants,
17:43who emit trails of pheromones to mark where the food is and remember it.
17:51Then other members of the colony use that external memory to find the food.
18:01If we look at the blob moving,
18:03we see that behind him,
18:04he leaves a strain of mucus,
18:06a kind of gel, a little bit like the eggs.
18:08And we realized that this mucus was repulsive,
18:11that the blob didn't want to jump twice on his mucus.
18:15So we made an experiment to show that this mucus
18:18could be used as a form of external memory.
18:24So you have a cage in form of U,
18:26you have the blob at a certain place,
18:28which must join a source of food
18:30that he can perceive at a distance,
18:32because the food is diffuse in the environment,
18:34but between it and the food,
18:35something that he can't see,
18:37there is a cage in form of U.
18:38So what will the blob do?
18:40Forcedly, it's to move forward towards the food
18:42and be found in the U.
18:44So the task is to contour the U
18:46and find the source of the U.
18:57So once we showed that the blob was able to do this,
19:00we did a second time the experience,
19:02but this time we covered the environment with the mucus.
19:04We finally made believe that the blob
19:06had already explored everything.
19:08And in this situation,
19:09the blob was no longer able to find its source of food.
19:12So we had thus proven that
19:13for the blob,
19:15his mucus is repulsive
19:16and it's used to mark the areas already explored.
19:22Like the ants,
19:24the blob can develop a kind of external memory,
19:27thanks to its mucus.
19:31For Audrey de Sautour and her colleagues,
19:34this discovery was a giant step
19:36in their understanding of how the blob behaves.
19:40This creature just kept pushing back the limits of possibility.
19:50When we see the capabilities of Fisaron Polycephalum,
19:53he can go out of a labyrinth,
19:55create optimized networks,
19:56go out of a cage in U,
19:58balance their food regime,
19:59we can ask ourselves
20:01if this organism is intelligent.
20:16For centuries, intelligence was thought of as being exclusive to Homo sapiens,
20:21the only creatures capable of reason and thought.
20:24It wasn't until the 20th century
20:27that researchers started to discover
20:29the cognitive abilities of animals,
20:32communication,
20:33memory,
20:34decision-making.
20:40To this day,
20:41the scientific community tends to view intelligence
20:44as belonging to complex living beings
20:46that have a nervous system and a brain.
20:56But for some years now,
20:59the study of cognitive processes in simpler organisms
21:02has been breaking down barriers.
21:07The idea of a form of intelligence without a brain
21:11is being promoted by some of the true pioneers in the field.
21:19To that end,
21:20in Florence,
21:22the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology was created.
21:34Frantisek Baluska and Stefano Mancuso
21:37are two of the world's foremost specialists
21:39in vegetable intelligence.
21:46The issue of intelligence,
21:50whether plants or other organisms are intelligent or not,
21:56is very dependent on the definition.
21:59How do we define intelligence?
22:01I believe that the correct definition of intelligence is the ability to solve problems.
22:31The notion of intelligence in the vegetable world has always been controversial.
22:38Charles Darwin himself faced ridicule when in 1870 he raised the possibility of intelligence in plants.
22:49Darwin tells you that every living organism has two poles, one cognitive and one reproductive pole,
22:58which are placed on the two sides of the organism.
23:03And then plants are like recycled men who have the head under the ground.
23:09What we see, the flowers, are the reproductive part.
23:12We really need to look at plants like something similar to this vase here.
23:22The father of the theory of evolution was already on to the importance of roots
23:27and dared to make the analogy with the brain.
23:33Darwin says that in the root of the root,
23:38there is the equivalent of a small brain,
23:43like the brain of an insect,
23:45which guides the plant.
23:51In 2005, together with Stefano, we started to argue that this theory is really not crazy theory,
23:59but it has some really important message.
24:02And since then, we have published several papers which are very strongly supporting this theory.
24:09Following up on Darwin's intuition, the two researchers have shown the importance of the root tips in a plant's growth.
24:26As it grows, the root advances bit by bit, all the time making contact with the soil.
24:33It feels its way, avoiding any obstacles and searching for the best possible environment in which to develop.
24:42But if you cut off the end of the root, it will grow much faster, but totally straight.
24:48It is no longer capable of analysing its environment.
25:03Once they'd validated Darwin's beloved root brain theory,
25:08Frantisek Maluska and Stefano Mancuso went on to prove that plants had another vital capacity.
25:15Memory.
25:17Frantisek Maluska and Stefano Mancuso
25:17Pubblicammo un lavoro in cui dimostravamo che la mimosa pudica
25:22era in grado di memorizzare differenti stimoli
25:27e di differenziare fra uno stimolo pericoloso e uno stimolo non pericoloso
25:32e di rispondere nella maniera adeguata.
25:39Plants are made up of millions of cells that all interact.
25:45A root that processes information like a brain and has the ability to memorise,
25:50these are characteristics that we thought were exclusive to the animal world.
25:55Seemingly they exist in vegetables too.
26:03Could such capacities be possible in a living creature composed of just one cell?
26:11Audrey Dussetour proved that the blob is also capable of retaining information.
26:39The objective was to try and get the blob used to a substance it didn't like, salt.
26:59Between the blob and its favourite snack is a bridge a few centimetres long.
27:06Normally the blob would take under two hours to cross it.
27:11But when, on day one of the test, the bridge was covered with salt,
27:17it took ten hours to advance just one centimetre.
27:26But then we ask him to do this behavior.
27:30And here we see that he takes eight hours to cross the bridge.
27:32Then you test the blob again.
27:34You do this for five days of the process.
27:36And you will see that the blob takes more time than a blob controlling blob
27:41who passes a bridge without substances.
27:43The blob is used to these substances that are unpleasant for him.
27:47The blob finally learnt to tolerate salt.
27:57This experiment required enormous patience and a lot of precision.
28:08Now, you must know that the first thing is that the experiment lasts nine days.
28:11So you have to follow the same blob for nine days.
28:14Secondly, this experiment was done on four thousand different blobs.
28:19Because when you want to prove a learning at an unicellular,
28:23a result which is a little bit exceptional,
28:26you must be sure to be able to convince your colleagues.
28:29And that's why we repeated, repeated, repeated the experience,
28:33in all four thousand times.
28:42Audrey Dussetour was the first to scientifically prove habituation
28:47in a single-celled organism.
28:49It was a revolution in the scientific community.
29:16Audrey Dussetour's discovery pushed back the limits of scientific knowledge.
29:22After human beings, animals and vegetables,
29:26she showed that a single-celled being was also capable of memory and learning.
29:32But just how far could the blob really go?
29:35It's indestructible. It's indescribable. Nothing can stop it.
29:40This town is in danger. How can it be stopped?
29:44Bob Hysteria sweeps one city before long the nation,
29:47and then the world could fall before the blood-curdling threat of the blob.
30:08To find out, Audrey Dussetour started with the blob's remarkable ability to merge.
30:17When we take a blob and cut it in two,
30:20we usually have two autonomous blobs.
30:23How does it work?
30:24In reality, the blob is an unicellular organism,
30:27but it contains plenty of needles,
30:29that is, it has plenty of copies of its genetic material.
30:33So when you cut the blob in two,
30:35each part has a part of the genetic material
30:37and can work autonomously.
30:41A blob cut into two equal blobs.
30:49Then, if you take these two blobs,
30:51you put them side-by-side, they will fusion.
30:54In fact, at the blob 1 plus 1, it's 1.
30:58So how does this fusion happen?
31:00In reality, the membranes are stuck,
31:02open, and then we will have a connection to the vein,
31:05and we will have a unique blob, autonome.
31:11To find out if the blob can transmit what it has learned,
31:15Audrey Dussetour brought together thousands of blobs
31:18that were accustomed to salt, with other so-called naïve ones.
31:39The blob is capable not only of learning, but also of developing a kind of communication,
31:46and sharing what it has learned, proof of its genius.
31:55According to these discoveries that the blob could learn and transfer it,
32:00we asked the question, what is the support of this memory?
32:03The fact that it could transfer it from a blob to another
32:06has given us a little bit of an indication.
32:09In fact, it seemed that the memory was circulating within the Venue network.
32:17She injected salt directly into the Venue system of a naïve blob.
32:40The blob's memory comes from storing a substance inside itself.
32:46A memory specific to each blob that influences its behavior when it moves around or feeds.
32:53Audrey Dussetour noticed that, depending where they came from,
32:57blobs didn't have quite the same abilities.
33:18The Japanese blob is the fastest.
33:22The Australian blob is slower but more careful.
33:26And the American blob is the greediest.
33:32For a little anecdote, when we received the American blob,
33:36we had a lot of bio bio flocons in the laboratory,
33:39because it's good for the planet.
33:41That's how we raised our Australian blob.
33:43And when the American blob arrived, we gave the same food.
33:46And he refused it. He preferred to get out of the box.
33:49He didn't like bio bio flocons in the laboratory.
33:51He preferred a famous American brand.
34:01Audrey Dussetour's discoveries were followed by others from researchers all over the world,
34:07all keen to learn more about cognition in so-called primary beings.
34:16They get together frequently to share their progress on various organisms,
34:21plants, bacteria, sea anemones, or aquatic worms called planariums.
34:32When it comes to solving the mysteries of intelligence without a brain,
34:37the blob is the most promising of them all.
34:49In the German city of Bremen, Professor Hans-Gunther Derbereiner and his team
34:54are trying to decode and simulate the blob's guiding mechanisms.
35:09The research of Hans-Gunther Derbereiner
35:11focuses on the implementation of the veineux network in the blobs.
35:15For that, he focuses on very small size blobs.
35:18He uses a microscope to see how this veineux is generated.
35:22In reality, Hans-Gunther does microscopic etiology,
35:25whereas we do much more macroscopic.
35:30Seen through an electronic microscope,
35:33the blob reveals more of its internal functions.
35:40This network is that there is a stream of what we call a protoplasm.
35:46This is the same as blood flowing in our body.
35:50You can see here that there is a flow within these veins.
35:56Within these internal veins, we can't see it here,
35:59but there will be actin filaments wrapping up these veins,
36:05which causes contraction and relaxation,
36:08which gives the force for these protoplasms to go back and forth.
36:13And this is called shuttle streaming.
36:21Three steps forward, two steps back.
36:24Like a tide, the pressure on the membrane from this current
36:28pushes the whole organism forward.
36:32And the plasticity of its membrane allows it to take on ever more diverse forms.
36:39The form the blob chooses depends on its environment,
36:44as proven by Professor Derbereiner's team.
36:50A cat is always a cat,
36:53and a bacterium is always a bacterium.
36:56But Physarum, that is like a transformer.
37:02The biologically, the natural transformer of the nature.
37:18of that to understand how the blob builds its network researchers used a centrifuge to obtain
37:24hundreds of mini blobs just 200 microns in diameter at this stage the mini blobs haven't
37:35established any kind of connection what's interesting it is we see these
37:42einzelnen getrennten kleinen objekte in a netzwerk verwandeln was also saying that
37:46zusammenhängt immer see that's here that's it is a nice and then objekte
37:50mehren mehren miteinander verbinden und das ist das ist was wir studieren
38:01observing the creation of a vascular system allows them to analyze how the connections
38:06that distribute the blobs blood are made the bremen teams are trying to establish a mathematical
38:13model to describe the process a model that could help medicine to understand cancer
38:26hans gunter derbereiner observed that to feed and develop tumors construct a vascular system similar
38:33to that of the blog computer modeling of the blob system then can give some indication of how tumors
38:47grow and our genius without a brain has plenty of other solutions to offer science to on
38:53before dot application oblob la premier c'est une application on you will ecologique on if a
38:59le blocante se déplacent on son avionement il encore port tout un tas de substance et on a
39:03découvert que chez un cousin du blog chez fuligo septica aussi appelé vomi de chien ou caca de luna
39:10cet organisme était capable d'accumuler des métaux lourds type par exemple zinc ou manganèse
39:16donc on pourrait se servir des blobs pour pouvoir dépolluer certains sols la deuxième application
39:23qu'on peut voir en médecine c'est que le blob se nourrit de bactéries et de champignons et pour
39:28cela il va sécréter des antibiotiques et des antifongiques et donc il peut nous permettre de
39:33découvrir de nouvelles molécules pour lutter contre nos propres maladies
39:37le blob is an incomparable model organism in fields as varied as biophysics ecology and medicine
39:55but it hasn't revealed all its secrets yet
40:08and now in boston at one of the epicenters of the study of primitive intelligence they're actually
40:14trying to get the blob to talk michael levin head of the allen discovery center has a background in
40:23both computer science and biology he is trying to decode the language of cells
40:38to help crack the code of primitive intelligence he's drawing on his knowledge of the planarians the
40:44little aquatic worms that have been around on earth for almost 500 million years
40:54unlike the blob planarians do possess a rudimentary brain but that's not their most extraordinary
41:01characteristic one of the most important things about planaria is that they regenerate every part of
41:11the body so if cut into pieces every piece of a planarian knows exactly what a standard planarian body
41:17should look like because it regenerates it regrows everything that's missing in the correct location
41:22and it stops when it's done
41:36when a planarian is cut in two its cells regenerate to rebuild a head at one end
41:42and a tail at the other the memory of the planarian's form is therefore stored in the whole of its
41:50body
41:50at the very heart of its cells
42:00so we've been studying the question of how how is this information stored in process and over the years
42:06we've discovered that part of this control is an electric circuit that allows these cells to store
42:11this kind of information and what we found is that if we temporarily just for 48 hours disrupt this
42:18electric circuit and and in this in essence wipe the finely encoded pattern memory of these tissues when
42:25they regenerate they can regenerate as two-headed animals
42:37by disturbing the communication between the cells and modifying the electrical signals they exchange
42:43Michael Levin has coaxed the planarian into growing a second head in place of its tail
42:50it's an incredible result which opens up infinite possibilities
42:57what's at stake here are many applications in regenerative medicine and basic biology
43:02because if we understood how cells specify to each other
43:05what is the structure that they're working to build or repair
43:08we could do many things we could fix birth defects
43:11we could grow back limbs or eyes or other structures that that a patient might have lost
43:15and turn tumor tissue back towards the normal cooperative behavior that cells have in making coordinated structures
43:22instead of tumors
43:27what determines the function of a cell?
43:31this fundamental question may well be answered by the blob
43:36that's Michael Levin's theory
43:38when he heard about Audrey Dussetor's work
43:40he decided to undertake new research on Fisarum
43:43for us the most important thing in Fisarum is to really understand how specific information is encoded
43:51in other words if the Fisarum learns that crossing a salt bridge is good
43:55or that a particular maze has a particular structure
43:58how is that represented in whatever is inside the Fisarum?
44:04his objective is to decode the language of cells to communicate directly with them
44:09and perhaps one day influence their behavior
44:14it's a whole new continent of cellular intelligence that's opening
44:18a land of great promise
44:28in Bristol
44:29behind the doors of his unconventional computing laboratory
44:33Andrew Adamatsky sees the blob as a great opportunity
44:37to develop new approaches to computer science
44:42his research sometimes takes unexpected turns
44:47I grew on Steinmode on the set of electrodes
44:49and then recorded the potential difference between neighboring electrodes
44:53and then after recording the electrical activity
44:56I encoded it into the sounds
44:59and decompressed nine days of recording into five minutes of the sound
45:27in the signification of the Steinmode lifetime
45:31it's reflected first of all enuculation
45:34and like adolescent growth of the slime mold
45:38when it covers all electrodes
45:40then maturation
45:41and then when humidity goes down
45:44aging and decay
45:46beating of the electrical potential of the slime mold
45:49becoming slower and slower
45:50until slime mold goes to sleep
46:06apart from this blob symphony
46:08Andrew Adamatsky has other plans as well
46:11for the electrical emissions of Physarum
46:13by using mechanisms of slime mold
46:17adaptation for example
46:19we can develop new hardware and new protocols
46:22for soft robots
46:26he grafts blobs onto robots
46:29which move to the rhythm of their electric pulses
46:35he can even make them change direction
46:38by zapping the blob with a laser beam
46:41Physarum is strongly repelled by light
46:48inspired by the blob's many talents
46:51his objective is to reinvent the robots of tomorrow
46:55and make robots as intelligent as the blob
46:59capable of constantly adapting and reacting to their environment
47:04just as the blob has been doing for millions of years
47:12Computers and robots
47:14biophysics
47:16ethology
47:16these scientists are all working on basic research
47:22unlike applied research
47:24it's about venturing into unknown territories
47:27with no immediate application
47:30however their discoveries could change the world
47:37we need fundamental research
47:39to uncover some kind of lateral knowledge
47:43and go deeply in the mechanics of nature
47:46and indeed benefits will be like in the next 25, 50 or 100 years
47:59we are doing fundamental research
48:01and it's true that people are more focused on the applied research
48:06but you have to see them as indissociable one from the other
48:09it's like a flower
48:10the fundamental research would be the root of this flower
48:13and the floral part would be the applied research
48:16if you don't have roots, you don't have a flower
48:29the blob has revealed some of the secrets of its incredible longevity here on earth
48:34nutrition, mobility, fusion, mapping, learning, memory
48:47but science isn't short of big ideas
48:50and space could be the next field of investigation
48:57according to our numerous discoveries on the blobs
48:59we have been contacted by astrophysicists from Grenoble
49:02who had an idea a bit saugrenu
49:04which was to send the blob into space
49:06so the goal of this mission was to put the blob into a nanosatellite
49:10to send it into space
49:12and to be able to see in live
49:14by putting cameras and captures
49:16how a cellule reacts to the conditions of space
49:20that means in zero gravity
49:22face to the electromagnetic rayons
49:24face to all the cosmic rayons
49:33Physarum polycephalum
49:35could be joining the blob from that 1958 film
49:38up in its cradle in the stars
49:41are you going to usher to see them?
49:54what new surprises has the blob got in store for us?
50:01what else can it teach us about the origins of intelligence?
50:09this story is only just beginning
50:44as old
50:47this story is going to be visited
50:48it is already seen in the dark
50:48of the human mankind
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