We've seen robots
controlled by
bugs, so it seems only logical that scientists would continue their quest down the de-evolutionary chain to find
ever simpler and more easily enslaved creatures to lend their brains to their creations. And that process may well have
reached its apotheosis with the bot recently unveiled by Klaus-Peter Zauner of the University of Southampton, which is
controlled by a bright yellow slime mold. The single-celled organism naturally moves away from light and toward moist
places, and was able to control a six-legged robot when light was focused on a sensor. Since the slime mold is able to
grow to several feet in size, we assume Zauner is working on applications that go far beyond the lab, which will
inevitably result in a light-controlled slime-bot army slowly slithering its way to world domination.
