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A colorized scanning electron micrograph of the fruiting body of Physarum polycephalum. The actual size is 3 mm tall. This picture appeared on the cove of the April 2001 issue of Microscopy Today. (picture obtained from: www.educationalassistance.org)

A team of scientists from Hokkaido University and the ATR Wave Engineering Laboratories in Japan cultured the single-celled slime mold Physarum polycephalum (a member of the amoeba clan) in a bed of oat flakes on an agar media. Every ten minutes the air was made slightly cooler and drier, which had the effect of slowing the movement of the amoebas.Then more favorable air would be restored and the motion continued as before. After several cycles, the amoebas slowed down their motion even when the hostile conditions were not applied. Later still, when the organisms have been tricked into anticipating impending climate change several times, they stop from slowing without an actual change in conditions. One of the researchers, Toshiyuki Nakagaki from Hokkaido ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ), cautions that amoebas do not have a brain and that this is not an example of classic “Pavlovian” conditioned response behavior. Nevertheless, it might represent more evidence for a primitive sensitivity or “intelligence” based on the dynamic behavior of the tubular structures deployed by the amoeba.  (Saigusa et al., Physical Review Letters, 11 January 2008 ).

Source: American Institute of Physics