Title: Physarum Machines. Selected Works

Authors: Andrew Schumann, Krzysztof Pancerz

Reviewers: prof. Andrew Adamatzky (Bristol, UK), dr Andrzej Szelc (Rzeszow, Poland)

Publishers: University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow & Scientific Publishing House IVG

ISBN 978-83-62062-74-4 E-book PDF (downloading from the shop)

Physarum polycephalum belongs to the species of order Physarales, subclass Myxo-gastromycetidae, class Myxomycetes, division Myxostelida. Plasmodium is a ‘vegetative’ phase of P. polycephalum, it is a single cell with a myriad of diploid nuclei. It behaves and moves as a giant amoeba. Typically, the plasmodium forms a network of protoplasmic tubes connecting the masses of protoplasm at the food sources which has been shown to be efficient in terms of network length and resilience.

A Physarum Chip is a biological sensing and computing device implemented in vegetative stage of acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum. The Physarum Chip is programmed by spatio-temporal configurations of repelling and attracting gradients. There are several classes of Physarum Chips: morphological processors, sensing devices, frequency-based, biomolecular and microfluidic logical circuits, and electronic devices.

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