Laboratory News

The most unusual talents…

They live in damp locations, feeding on bacteria and other micro-organisms – honey and oats is a bit of a treat, but what slime mould really wants is a sedative.

Slime mould has a tough life – it is exploited to solve mazes and mimic ‘logic gates’ – it’s no wonder that the primitive bacteria has a preference for over-the-counter sedatives. Who wouldn’t if you spent all day trying to solve complex mathematical problems while stuffing yourself with honey and oats?

Professor Andrew Adamatzky from the University of West England uses oats and honey to entice his slime mould – Physarum polycephalum – towards the food source helping solve a complex computational geometry problem known as the concave hull. The concave hull is a many-sided shape that encompasses a number of points.

“For some tasks, oats and honey are not enough,” said Adamatzky, who set about finding an ideal substance to play the role of long-distant attractant and short distant repellent. He found commercial herbal sleeping tablets did just that.

“I became completely curious why Physarum becomes so mad about these tablets – it ignores vitamin pills completely,” he said, and started testing all active substances present in the tablet.

The key was valerian root (Valeriana officinalis) – a herb used to ease nervous tension, hysteria, excitability and stress, and is also a muscle relaxant. Slime mould obviously needs something to de-stress it at the end of a hard day’s task.

Adamatzky said this finding was a result of his curiosity about the slime’s unusual taste, but the outcome might help with future experiments which will exploit the poor mould’s computational abilities.

That slime mould has ‘computational abilities’ is enough to shake the Science lite desk to its very foundations quite frankly – what revelation will turn up next? Bacteria can drive? Mice can organise charity concerts? Frogs can take on the form of a clawed superhero from the X-men comics?

…what’s that? Ah – it appears our attempt at drollness has in fact uncovered a rather incredible truth. Let us introduce you to the somewhat inadequately named Hairy Fog. Why inadequate? you may ask – for is the hairy frog not hairy? Well, yes it is – although choosing to name this particular frog after that trait seems to miss the point a little. We’d like to suggest a re-brand as we launch –drums roll dramatically – the Wolverine Frog!

The inspiration for this comes from a remarkable ability the Hairy Frog – sorry, Wolverine Frog – has to defend against attack. Trichobatrachus robustus actively breaks its own bones to produce claws that puncture their way out of the frog’s toe pads!

Researchers – lead by Professor X presumably – found a small bony nodule nestled in the tissue just beyond the frog’s fingertip. When sheathed, each claw is anchored to the nodule with tough strands of collagen, when the frog is grabbed or attacked, the frog breaks the nodule connection and forces its sharpened bones through the skin.

Once again nature has beaten Hollywood in coming up with the ultimate tough guy. We shall now sit back and wait for Spielberg to call for the film rights. Of one thing we are certain – we Science liters will be the first in the queue to see “Hairy Frog vs Alien”.