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The Blob A Genius without a Brain (2020) [Full Movie] [Latest 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, were 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.
08:44The blob gropes around for a bit,
08:47ignores the less suitable
08:49puddings,
08:50and goes for the optimal one.
08:53And we saw in this experiment
08:54that Physarome Polycephalome
08:55was a little bit of a genius of nutrition,
08:57because it was directed to the flan
08:58that would maximize its growth.
09:03If none of the puddings contain the perfect ratio,
09:07the blob combines two of the imperfect ones,
09:10one of them too sugary,
09:12the other too high in protein.
09:36In humans and animals,
09:38nutritional needs are handled by the brain,
09:41working alongside the stomach.
09:45The blob doesn't have a brain or a stomach,
09:48yet it can optimize the intake of those nutrients
09:51essential for its growth.
09:59Another remarkable phenomenon
10:01is that when conditions are very bad
10:04and there's no food left,
10:06the 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,
10:20you just sprinkle it with water.
10:23When it wakes up,
10:25the blob's full of youthful vigour again
10:27and ready for new adventures.
10:39But Audrey de Soutour is not the first person
10:42to have studied this extraordinary organism.
11:04In Japan, they have a long tradition
11:07of studying slime moulds.
11:10Professor Toshiyuki Nakagaki
11:12of the University of Hokkaido
11:14is one of the third generation
11:16of Japanese researchers
11:18to be thrilled by Faisaru.
11:30In the scientific community,
11:32they think of Professor Nakagaki
11:34as the blob master.
11:37He was the first to reveal
11:39the blob's extraordinary ability
11:41to move about.
11:45For him, as a biophysicist,
11:47single-celled organisms
11:49are fundamental to his work.
12:14The blob is not like any other cell.
12:18Thanks to its sheer size,
12:20unique experiments,
12:20can be carried out on it.
12:22That means that Professor Nakagaki
12:24and his assistant, Daniel Shentz,
12:27can put it through tests
12:28usually reserved for animals.
12:32Such as the labyrinth test.
12:39They place the blob in a maze
12:42along with a source of nutrition.
12:45Will it find its way?
12:53It deploys its network of veins
12:55to 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,
13:16a blob is meticulously positioned
13:19over the whole surface of the labyrinth.
13:32At the entrance and exit of the maze
13:35are some oat flakes,
13:36there to test the blob's ability
13:38to connect two different food sources.
13:47The blob's reaction is amazing.
13:52One by one,
13:54it eliminates all the wrong pathways.
13:57Soon, there's just one vein left,
14:00linking the two food sources
14:02by the shortest route.
14:07The blob just passed the labyrinth test.
14:11By choosing the shortest path,
14:13it has optimised the transfer of nutrients
14:15into its organism.
14:21In view of this incredible result,
14:25Professor Nakagaki published an article
14:27in Nature magazine.
14:29It made waves.
14:32In 2008,
14:34he received the Ignoble Prize,
14:36an award given to serious scientific research
14:39into the most unlikely subjects.
14:42Research that makes you smile,
14:44then think.
14:52But the professor didn't stop at that.
14:54He wanted to study the network of veins
14:56that Faisarum creates
14:58in order to hunt for food.
15:08Now, Faisarum is a particularly interesting
15:10organism to study biological transportation networks
15:13because it is basically an attack
15:16adaptive transportation network.
15:17That's what it is.
15:19So,
15:20if you want to study how network geometries
15:23and network layouts
15:24respond to the circumstances,
15:26then Faisarum is an ideal organism
15:28to study these kinds of things.
15:32Professor Nakagaki and his teams
15:34decided to compare the networks created by the blob
15:38to an existing system,
15:40the Japanese Railway Network,
15:42unanimously recognised as one of the most efficient
15:45in the world.
15:48On a map of the Tokyo region,
15:51the principal towns have been replaced by oat flakes
15:54while the blob is placed on the capital itself.
16:01Will Faisarum be able to solve this one?
16:09The blob explores its environment
16:12and as it discovers the oat flakes,
16:14permanently reconfigures its network of veins.
16:22It reinforces the links
16:23between the different food sources
16:25as the other links disappear.
16:32The network the blob created
16:33is just as efficient and streamlined
16:36as the railway network.
16:47When it comes to planning an optimal network,
16:50the 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
17:11have revealed one of the secrets
17:13of the blob's displacement mechanisms.
17:23When we look at Faisarum polycephalum
17:25moving,
17:26what hits is that
17:27Faisarum polycephalum
17:28never happens twice in the same place.
17:30The question we asked is
17:32whether the blob
17:33would not use a chemical trace
17:35to memorize its environment.
17:41It's a strategy found in ants
17:43who emit trails of pheromones
17:45to mark where the food is
17:47and remember it.
17:52Then other members of the colony
17:53use that external memory
17:55to find the food.
18:01If we look at the blob
18:02moving,
18:03we can see that
18:03behind him
18:04there is a strain of mucus
18:06a kind of gel
18:07a little bit like the escargot.
18:08And we realized
18:09that this mucus
18:10was repulsive.
18:11That is,
18:12that the blob
18:12did not want to jump
18:13twice on his mucus.
18:15So,
18:16we made an experiment
18:17to show that
18:18this mucus
18:18could be used
18:19as a form of external memory.
18:24So,
18:24you have a
18:25hole in form of U.
18:26You have the blob
18:27at a certain place
18:28that must join
18:29a source of food
18:30that he can perceive
18:31at a distance
18:31because the food
18:32is diffuse
18:33in the environment.
18:34But between
18:34it and the food,
18:35there is something
18:36that he can't see,
18:37there is a hole in form of U.
18:38So,
18:39what will do the blob?
18:40Forcedly,
18:40it is to find out
18:41in the U.
18:44So,
18:44the task is to
18:45contour the U
18:46and find the source of the food.
18:57So,
18:57the blob
18:57Once we showed
18:58that the blob was able
18:59to do that,
19:00we did a second time
19:01the experience,
19:02but this time
19:02we covered the environment
19:03with the mucus.
19:04We finally made the blob
19:06that he had already
19:07explored everything.
19:08And in this situation,
19:09the blob was no longer
19:10able to find its source
19:11of food.
19:12So,
19:12we had thus proven
19:13that for the blob,
19:15his mucus is repulsive
19:16and he uses
19:16to mark the areas
19:18already explored.
19:22Like the ants,
19:24the blob can develop
19:25a kind of external memory
19:26thanks to its mucus.
19:31For Audrey de Satorre
19:33and her colleagues,
19:34this discovery
19:35was a giant step
19:36in their understanding
19:37of how the blob behaves.
19:41This creature
19:42just kept pushing back
19:43the limits of possibility.
19:50When we see
19:50the capabilities
19:51of Fisaron
19:52polycephalum,
19:53he can go out
19:54of a labyrinth,
19:55create optimized networks,
19:56get out of a cage
19:57in U,
19:58balance their alimentary regime,
19:59we can ask
20:00the question
20:00of whether
20:02this organism is intelligent.
20:16For centuries,
20:17intelligence was thought
20:19of as being exclusive
20:20to Homo sapiens,
20:21the only creatures
20:22capable of reason
20:23and thought.
20:24it wasn't until
20:26the 20th century
20:27that researchers
20:28started to discover
20:29the cognitive abilities
20:31of animals,
20:32communication,
20:33memory,
20:34decision-making.
20:39To this day,
20:41the scientific community
20:42tends to view intelligence
20:44as belonging
20:44to complex living beings
20:46that have a nervous system
20:48and a brain.
20:56But for some years now,
20:59the study of cognitive processes
21:00in simpler organisms
21:02has been breaking down barriers.
21:07the idea of a form
21:09of intelligence
21:10without a brain
21:11is being promoted
21:12by some of the true pioneers
21:14in the field.
21:19To that end,
21:20in Florence,
21:22the International Laboratory
21:23of Plant Neurobiology
21:24was created.
21:34Frantisek Baluska
21:36and Stefano Mancuso
21:37are two of the world's
21:38foremost specialists
21:39in vegetable intelligence.
21:46The question of intelligence,
21:50whether plants or other organisms
21:53are intelligent or not,
21:56depends on the definition.
21:59How do we define intelligence?
22:02I think the correct definition
22:05of intelligence
22:07is the ability to solve problems.
22:11Due to the fact
22:12that it is so tightly linked
22:13to the human beings,
22:15it is very difficult
22:16now to speak
22:16about intelligence
22:17in other organisms.
22:19But in fact,
22:19it is just very simply
22:21the ability
22:22of the organisms
22:23to survive
22:24and it requires
22:25really high intelligence
22:27to survive outside
22:28in a hard environment.
22:31The notion of intelligence
22:33in the vegetable world
22:34has always been controversial.
22:38Charles Darwin himself
22:39faced ridicule
22:40when in 1870
22:41he raised the possibility
22:43of intelligence in plants.
22:49He says Darwin
22:50that every living organism
22:53has two poles,
22:55one cognitive pole
22:56and one reproductive pole
22:58that are placed
22:59on the two sides
23:00of the organism.
23:03And then,
23:03the plants
23:03are like
23:04damaged men
23:06who have the head
23:08under the ground.
23:09What we see
23:10are the reproductive parts.
23:12we really have to look
23:14at the plants
23:15like something
23:16similar
23:17to this vase.
23:22The father
23:23of the theory of evolution
23:25was already
23:26on to the importance
23:26of roots
23:27and dared
23:28to make the analogy
23:29with the brain.
23:32And then,
23:33Darwin says
23:34that
23:35in the root
23:36of the root
23:38there is
23:40the equivalent
23:40of a small
23:42of a small brain
23:43like the brain
23:44of an insect
23:44that guides the plant.
23:51In 2005,
23:53together with Stefano,
23:54we started to argue
23:56that this theory
23:57is really
23:57not a crazy theory
23:59but it has
23:59some really important message.
24:02And since then,
24:03we have published
24:04several papers
24:05which are very strongly
24:06supporting this theory.
24:09following up on Darwin's intuition,
24:11the two researchers
24:12have shown
24:13the importance
24:14of the root tips
24:15in a plant's growth.
24:26as it grows,
24:28the root advances
24:29bit by bit,
24:30all the time
24:31making contact
24:32with the soil.
24:33It feels its way,
24:35avoiding any obstacles
24:36and searching
24:37for the best
24:38possible environment
24:39in which to develop.
24:42But if you cut off
24:43the end of the root,
24:44it will grow
24:45much faster
24:46but totally straight.
24:48It's no longer
24:49capable
24:50of analysing
24:51its environment.
25:03Once they'd validated
25:05Darwin's beloved
25:06root brain theory,
25:07Frantisek Maluska
25:09and Stefano Mancuso
25:10went on
25:11to prove
25:11that plants
25:12had another
25:13vital capacity,
25:14memory.
25:17We published a work
25:19in which
25:19we showed
25:20that Pudica
25:22was able
25:23to memorize
25:25different stimuli
25:27and to differentiate
25:28between
25:29a dangerous stimuli
25:30and a not dangerous stimuli
25:32and to respond
25:33in the right way.
25:39plants are made up
25:40of millions
25:41of cells
25:41that all
25:42interact.
25:45A root
25:46that processes
25:46information
25:47like a brain
25:48and has the ability
25:49to memorize,
25:50these are characteristics
25:51that we thought
25:52were exclusive
25:53to the animal world.
25:55Seemingly,
25:56they exist
25:56in vegetables too.
26:03Could such capacities
26:04be possible
26:05in a living creature
26:06composed of just one cell?
26:11Audrey Dussetour
26:12proved that the blob
26:14is also capable
26:15of retaining information.
26:39The objective was to try
26:41and get the blob used
26:42to a substance
26:43it didn't like,
26:44salt.
26:59between the blob
27:00and its favorite snack
27:02is a bridge
27:03a few centimeters long.
27:06Normally,
27:07the blob would take
27:08under two hours
27:09to cross it.
27:11but when, on day one of the test,
27:14the bridge was covered
27:15with salt,
27:17it took ten hours
27:18to advance
27:19just one centimeter.
27:21the blob
27:21and then the blob
27:23into the water.
27:26But then,
27:27we ask him to do
27:28again
27:29this behavior.
27:30And here,
27:30we see that he takes
27:31eight hours to cross the bridge.
27:32Then, you test the blob
27:34and you do it
27:34for five days.
27:36And you will see
27:36that the blob
27:38finally takes
27:38more time
27:39than a blob
27:40that travels
27:41without a substance.
27:43The blob
27:43is used to
27:44these substances
27:45that are not a pleasure
27:46for him.
27:48The blob
27:49finally learnt
27:50to tolerate
27:51salt.
27:57This experiment
27:59required
28:00enormous patience
28:01and a lot
28:02of precision.
28:08Well, you have to know that the first thing is that the experience lasts 9 days, so you have to
28:12follow the same blob for 9 days.
28:14Secondly, this experience has been done on 4,000 different blobs.
28:19Because when you want to prove a learning from an unicellular, a result which is a little bit exceptional,
28:26you must be sure to be able to convince your colleagues.
28:29That's why we have repeated, repeated, repeated the experience in all 4,000 times.
28:42Audrey Dussetour was the first to scientifically prove habituation in 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, she 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. This town is in danger. How can it be stopped?
29:44Bob Hysteria sweeps one city before long the nation, and then the world could fall before the blood-curdling threat
29:50of 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, we usually have two autonomous blobs.
30:23How does it work?
30:24In reality, the blob is an unicellular organism, but it contains plenty of needles.
30:29That means it has plenty of copies of its genetic material.
30:33When you cut the blob in two, each part has a part of the genetic material and can work autonomously.
30:41A blob cut into two equal blobs.
30:49Then, if you take these two blobs, you put them side-by-side, they will be fusioned.
30:54In fact, the blob 1 plus 1 is 1.
30:58So, how does this fusion happen?
31:00In reality, the membranes are attached, open, and then we will have a connection with the brain cells,
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 that were accustomed to salt,
31:19with other so-called naïve ones.
31:39The blob is capable not only of learning, but also of developing a kind of communication and sharing what it
31:47has 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,
32:07has given us a little bit of an indication.
32:09In fact, it seemed that the memory had circulated 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 behaviour when it moves around or feeds.
32:53Audrey Dussetour noticed that, depending where they came from,
32:56blob's 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 it the same food.
33:46And he refused it. He preferred to get out of the box.
33:49In fact, he doesn't like bio bio flocons,
33:51he prefers a little American brand.
34:01Audrey Dussetour's discoveries were followed by others
34:04from researchers all over the world,
34:06all 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,
34:36the blob is the most promising of them all.
34:49In the German city of Bremen,
34:52Professor 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, they focus on very small size blobs.
35:18He will use a microscope to see how this veineux is generated.
35:22So, in reality, Hans-Gunther does microscopic biology,
35:24while we do more macroscopic biology.
35:29Seen 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.
35:47This 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
36:34allows 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.
36:50The provocation of consciousness goes a 그렇지 whatever thenatur
36:52Yeah, for example,
36:54as a protector is always a cat,
36:56but phonology,
36:57it's like a transformer,
37:00so to say,
37:02the biological,
37:04the natural transformer of nature,
37:06so to say.
37:18to understand how the blob builds its network researchers used a centrifuge to obtain hundreds
37:24of mini blobs just 200 microns in diameter at this stage the mini blobs haven't established
37:36any kind of connection was uns interessiert ist wie sich diese einzelnen getrennten kleinen
37:43objekte in einer netzwerk verwandeln was sozusagen zusammenhängt immer sie das hier dass ich diese
37:49einzelnen objekte mehr miteinander verbinden und das ist das ist was wir studieren
38:01observing the creation of a vascular system allows them to analyze how the
38:06connections that distribute the blobs blood are made the bremen teams are trying to establish
38:12a mathematical model to describe the process
38:19a model that could help medicine to understand cancer
38:26hans gunther derbereiner observed that to feed and develop tumors construct a vascular system similar
38:33to that of the blob computer modeling of the blob system then can give some indication of how
38:40tumors grow
38:47and our genius without a brain has plenty of other solutions to offer science too
38:52we can see other applications on blob the first one is an ecological application
38:58in fact the blob when it moves in its environment it incorporates all kinds of substances and we
39:03discovered that with a cousin of the blob the furigo septica also called vomi
39:08de chien or caca de luna this organism was able to accumulate
39:13metals such as zinc or manganese so we could use the blob to be able to pollute some sols
39:45the blob is an incomparable model organism
39:50in fields as varied as biophysics ecology and medicine but it hasn't revealed all its secrets yet
40:08and now in boston at one of the epicenters of the study of primitive intelligence
40:13they're actually trying to get the blob to talk
40:19michael levin head of the allen discovery center has a background in both computer science and biology
40:26he 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
40:44the little 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 characteristic
41:06one of the most important things about planaria is that they regenerate every part of the body so if cut
41:12into pieces every piece of a planarian knows exactly what a standard planarian body should look like
41:18because it regenerates it regrows everything that's missing in the correct location and it stops when it's done
41:36when a planarian is cut in two its cells regenerate to rebuild a head at one end and a tail
41:43at the other
41:46the memory of the planarian's form is therefore stored in the whole of its body at the very heart of
41:52its cells
42:00so we've been studying the question of how uh how is this information stored and processed and over the
42:06years we've discovered that part of this control is an electric circuit that allows these cells to
42:11store this kind of information and what we found is that if we temporarily just for 48 hours uh disrupt
42:18this electric circuit and and in essence wipe the finely encoded pattern memory of these tissues
42:24when they regenerate they can regenerate as two-headed animals
42:37by disturbing the communication between the cells and modifying the electrical signals they exchange
42:44michael 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 what is the structure that they're working to
43:07build or repair we could do many things we could fix birth defects we could grow back limbs or eyes
43:13or other
43:13structures that that a patient might have lost and turn tumor tissue back towards the normal cooperative
43:19behavior that cells have in making coordinated structures instead of tumors
43:28what determines the function of a cell this fundamental question may well be answered by the blob
43:36that's michael levin's theory when he heard about audrey jesitor's work he decided to undertake new research on phisarum
43:43for us the most important thing in phisarum is to really understand how specific information
43:49is encoded in other words if the phisarum learns that crossing salt bridge is good or that a particular maze
43:57uh has a particular structure how is that represented in whatever is inside the phisarum his objective is to
44:06decode the language of cells to communicate directly with them and perhaps one day influence their behavior
44:14it's a whole new continent of cellular intelligence that's opening a land of great promise
44:28in bristol behind the doors of his unconventional computing laboratory andrew adamatsky sees the blob
44:36as a great opportunity to develop new approaches to computer science
44:42his research sometimes takes unexpected turns
44:47i grew on star mode on the set of electrodes and then recorded potential difference between
44:52uh neighboring uh neighboring electrodes and then after recording the electrical activity i encoded it
44:58into the sounds and they compressed nine days of recording into five minutes of the sound
45:13of the star mode
45:14of the star mode lifetime it's reflected first of all in ukulele
45:27in the signification of the star mode lifetime it's reflected first of all in ukulele
45:34and like adolescent growth of slime mold when it covers all electrodes,
45:40then maturation, and then when humidity goes down, aging and decay,
45:46beating of the electrical potential of the slime mold becoming slower and slower
45:50until slime mold goes to sleep.
46:06Apart from this blob symphony, Andrew Adamatsky has other plans as well for the electrical emissions of Faisarum.
46:14By using mechanisms of slime mold, adaptation for example,
46:19we can develop new hardware and new protocols for soft robots.
46:26He grafts blobs onto robots which move to the rhythm of their electric pulses.
46:35He can even make them change direction by zapping the blob with a laser beam.
46:41Faisarum is strongly repelled by light.
46:48Inspired by the blob's many talents, his 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, biophysics, ethology,
47:17these scientists are all working on basic research.
47:22Unlike applied research, it's about venturing into unknown territories with no immediate application.
47:30However, their discoveries could change the world.
47:38We need fundamental research to uncover some kind of lateral knowledge
47:43and go deeply in the mechanics of nature.
47:48And indeed, benefits will be like the next 25, 50 or 100 years.
47:59In reality, we are doing fundamental research,
48:02and it's true that people are more focused on the applied research.
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, and space could be the next field of investigation.
48:57According to our numerous discoveries on the blobs,
48:59we have been contacted by astrophysicians from Grenoble
49:02who had an idea somewhat saugrenue,
49:04which was to send the blob into space.
49:06The goal of this mission was to put the blob into a nanosatellite,
49:11to send it into space,
49:12and to be able to see in live, by putting cameras and captures,
49:16how a cellule reacts to the conditions of space,
49:21that is, in zero gravity,
49:23face to electromagnetic rayons,
49:24face to all cosmic rayons.
49:34Physarum polycephalum could be joining the blob from that 1958 film,
49:39up in its cradle in the stars.
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.
50:35We've been doing this before,
50:47then it's just beginning to end up telling us,
50:47if we'll have a few questions.
50:47The first thing we'll have is,
50:47What are we going to do next in the next phase?
50:47We'll be leaving.
50:47The water for the same time is the one,
50:48the water for the last of the last hour.
50:50Let's see the water.
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