Slime Mold Grows Good Transit Network

Can the lowly amoeba teach transit planners how to combat congestion and design roads?

Apparently so, according to a new report in the journal Science. Researchers at the Hokkaido University in Japan studied the slime mold species Physarum polycephalum and discovered that as it grows, it connects itself to scattered food crumbs in a design that is remarkably similar to the Tokyo rail system.

Slime mold is similar to fungus and is a singled-celled animal that grows in a network of connected veins, spreading out like a web, reports msnbc.com.

Slime mold grows in the most efficient way it can to expand its access to nutrients, said the researchers.

The team placed oat flakes on a wet surface, making the flakes represent cities surrounding Tokyo. They added bright lights, which slime mold avoids, representing mountains or other geographical features trains would have to detour.

The slime mold formed a network around the nutrients in a pattern very similar to the train system linking cities around Tokyo -  and was actually more efficient. The scientists then fed the slime mold data into a computer model and hope to use the information to develop more efficient transportation networks.

In the photo above, the network on the left was designed by slime mold; the one on the right is the Tokyo rail network.

Biologically inspired networks may be the future for transit planners.

Read the scientific abstract here.