Slime Mold and Colored Nutrients
In the second lecture of our 'Diy biolab drivers license' course, students saw live how slime mold transfers nutrients within its body. Firstly the flow goes in one direction, after a while stops and then moves in another direction. Since this is how a slime mold grows and distributes nutrients to every part of its body, I wondered: what if the slime mold were to consume multicolored food—would it change its color as a result? And what if there were several different colors involved? Would distinct color boundaries be visible, or would there be soft transitions? Or would the slime mold simply turn a single, uniform color?
That's exactly how I started my experiments. For that I needed:
- slime mold
- petri dishes
- oat flakes
- agar
- food coloring
- camera
My final goal is to film the process of growing with camera. With the video/timelapse It will be very clear to see how slime mold changed colors.
First experiment (08.05)
During the first try it was important for me to understand my workflow in the lab and already test my idea practically.
First of all medium for slime mold had to be prapared. I'll use 2% agar solution.