Slime Molds: When Micro Becomes Macro 

I really love how you can tell that Hank is trying to keep a more chill, relaxed tones in these videos... but he sometimes gets so excited about what he's talking about that he starts to slip into his normal, more thrilled cadence.

It's amazing how the slime mold's movement and "learning" behaves pretty much like a neural net. The growth direction is dictated by internal pressure at different junctions, and it just creates new junctions until it reaches food. It's so basic, but at the same time so efficient... It looks like intelligence, but it's intrinsically a living path finding algorithm!

Still looking for them in the wild for you people but we cannot find them! And all of our slime molds formed spores, and we transferred them on wet tissues and waiting them to group up again!

I have a slime mold growing every summer in the shade of my house, living on only wood chips that cover a rubber sheet (for weed control). My wife wants me to hose it away, but I find it fascinating to watch.

These are really fascinating. The comparison between slime and the Tokoyo metro lines really blew my mind!

One defining characteristic of the Myxomycetes is that if you can trick them into saying their name backwards they disappear.

I always loved finding slime mold in my local woods. I called the type around my neighborhood "Woods jello" because they looked like someone had accidentally dropped lemon jello in the middle of the woods. It was surprising how far it could travel in a day.

Journey Hank was so excited by slime molds that he sounded like SciShow Hank :)

Someone asked me what they were once, all I could say is macro protist. When asked what that is I said it was a microscopic creature that does not fit into other groupings that are not in fact microscopic. They just looked at me like WTF? Ya well WTF would work too. Slimes are WTFs.

I can't wrap my brain around all of that being just ONE CELL!!

“...they fuse together...” Just in time for Valentine’s Day. Aaaaaaaw.

Man: “Ha-ha! Complexity indicates intelligence!!” Slime mold: “...”

I wish this episode had been longer. Please make a sequel going further into the literature and history of slime mold learning!

Eats oatmeal and prefers dark places.... sound like a broke college student to me

Where's the timelapse of the slime moving? You can't talk about how much it moves without the timelapse...

*Let me tell you mortals, you haven't lived until you've had yourselves a slime mold smoothie.*

When we make first contact with aliens, it'll probably be less of an epic handshake between a ship captain and a green man, and more of a bunch of scientists finding an autoreplicating blob in some cave

There was one in my backyard where a lot of swamp maples grow so maybe go under a swamp maple after it rains. It looked like a pile of yellow dog puke, but when I poked it, it was like weird styrofoam and black on the inside.

This makes you wonder what variants of unimaginable species would arise; if the evolution of life took a much differentiated path?

Slime molds are highly underappreciated. They're some of the most fascinating organisms around.

Smart slugs? Morphing? OATMEAL?! Holy crap, they're Yeerks!

So something that came to mind: Were slime molds an intermediary solution when single cell organisms came together to form multicellular organisms?

I can't get over how well this entire series is made. The world of the very tiny has turned from something creepy and disgusting into something fascinating and amazing that I can't help but find immense respect for. Thank you, James. Thank you, Hank. Thank you, patrons!

ZeFrank: This is Gladys, she is a slime mold.

Funny how these tiny things can make me feel so small.

When I lived on a ranch I found a slime mold, like the yellow one here, that was huge. It grew on a moist part of the ground that the horses and cows used as a resting place at other parts of the year, hence rich in composted manure. It was amazing how fast it moved. Must have observed it daily for about a week. Then I guess it spored, and died. Absolutely fascinating.

Man, i love slime moulds. They're just so interesting!

Now imagine entire planet taken by this kind of thingy-bob, and it became conscious, and then develops intelligence

Slime Mold: The Grossest Voltron?

You need to do more on the slime molds. They're just mind boggling!

Hank - your quiet "It's Alivee!" is awesome! The laugh was well worth the strange, confused look from my housemate, who was wondering WTF I was doing. Thanks for the skinny on Slime Molds JTTM crew! Always neat and informative.

Some of my favorite creatures! So glad you made an episode on them!

7:50 blew my mind - to see the material switch directions!

"Its a single cell", woah! "With millions of nuclei", oh... I know its still one "cell" but I always feel that giant and complicated "single celled" organisms are cheating the definition xD. It's still amazing the coordination and size of one continuous cytoplasm.

*We Attac* *We Protecc* *But most importantly...* *We slimey as hecc!*

This is so well done. The writing is brilliant. The tone that creeps and expands, like fascinating sci-fi horror. The cadence of voice acting, the musical tone shifts. The speed of cuts and goofy nature of the start to contrast how TERRIFYING! it becomes by the ending. This is an entire journey true to the name of the channel.

It's amazing how different they are, even at the most fundamental levels.

Absolutely awe-inspiring! I can't imagine this video being done better in any way! Thanks so much!!

Squishy Gooey Sticky Slime making channels are popular? Wannabes, these boyos did it first

James, Hank and all of the Patrions... thank you very much. I realize the priviledge of experiencing this miraculous channel for free! I could never afford this but desperately appreciate your allowing me into the microcosmic world.

Evolutionary Alternative: Imagine if humans naturally became "human centipedes", when conditions were poor?

Learnt about Slime Molds the very first time today. Found this video fascinating! And the commentary just as good

if they couldnt tolerate me at my cyst then its safe to say i was the last thing on their minds at my balamuthia.

Omg! I'm so glad that I found this video! I literally discovered one of these big things in my worm bin this morning, and had no idea what it was. The strangest thing is, it literally appeared overnight. Yesterday, I checked on my worm bin and saw about 4 or 5 of these small weird looking yellow vein-like growths that were about the size of a quarter each. When I came back out this morning, the small ones were all gone, but now there's this huge one! I was scratching my head wondering where the heck did the little ones go and how did this big one get like this overnight?! Well, I'll be damned if they didn't do what I had suspected, but was almost afraid to allow myself to think they moved and combined into one, because that sounds a bit cray cray! I'm so blown away right now! Such an awesome & informative video! Thanks so much for all the info. You literally just answered what I was trying to figure out. I guess I have new residents in my bin now! Are they harmful at all? Should I be concerned about it getting on my skin, or can they hurt my worms? Come to think of it, I make a powder blend of egg shells, oats and cornmeal to add to the feeding for the worms...I'm wondering if it's the oats that's got it coming around & growing so big overnight? 🤔

Slime molds! I've been waiting for this episode!

Im so happy I just stumbled on this channel, microbiology has always been something I've been curious about.

Last time I was this early, I didn't even have Mitochondria!

I like seeing the petri dish sample, because it puts into perspective the size of the sample as seen by the naked eye. Of course we all know that everything we see here is tiny, but it really blows the mind when we see a drop of water on a slide and then get a close look at the entire word in that drop of water.

- "It's Alive" in the Thumbnail -Where you at Brad? This doesn't look like BA test kitchen...

Just wanted to say how awesome this channel is since all of the videos have subtitles, yet none of them is advertised!

What's a slime mold's fractal number? It definitely has some self- similarity

My hell of a day vanished as I was watching this. Thank you, it's awesome to learn while relaxing.

"There are only two genders" Slime Molds: "Revolting"

This channel and its fantastic content teach me infinitely more about life than half a library of philosophical books, hours of meditation, and countless therapy sessions combined.

Seems we keep finding more organisms that we share quite a lot in common with. I wonder if we got enough of them with characteristics we know support complex life and apply the right conditions if we would see evolution take place before our eyes. Or, these are the link in evolution. They sure act like many land plants. Maybe they evolved into mycelium on costal lands and trees are just permanent fruiting bodies.

Great intro, and love the full-color close-up images. Thanks!

I'm in microbiology class at high school. These are very interesting, and beutifull videos. Good work.

The narration at times sounded like poetry. Beautiful. I subscribed.

I am sure, they would never form the inefficient mess in Germany.

Once I found quite a large yellow myxomycetes growing on soil contaminated and fed from a leaking sewage in a passage of a building... Looked artistic and beautiful like tree with network of branches, but scary too and as it grew and spread very fast covering a larger area every day. I always felt very curious about it as it feels like looking at an invasive alien thing. Never tried to touch or disturb it, though I knew it was a slime mould as we were taught in class. And one day it was gone when the place was cleaned up. Never seen that again.

Had one of these amazing things in my pitcher-plant terrarium. I assume/hope there are still some living in there in their amoeba stage, they're most welcome!

I feel oddly proud and happy knowing I subscribed to this channel back when it had only 2k subs

My 1 year old baby was completely glued to this episode. He was leaning in with me, in awe for the entire 11 minutes

Well this was both fascinating and unsettling.

Spooky that this slime is more intelligent than some people on our planet.

WOOOOO been waiting forever for you guys to do slime molds have been hoping for this since this channel started. love you guys btw you do seriously awesome and very informative videos. have yet to miss even a single one!

id like explanation on fungus, how does their microscopic life work ? for i am interested as they are no vegetal nor animal, they are great !

Very interesting video Hank & crew. Keep up the terrific work....... 👍👍

5:00 What is that signal? Personally, I hope it's a Beatles song about a nearly invisible, good looking sick guy with poor hygiene.

Ever since this channel started I've been waiting for this video

Can I eat it?

I can not imagine this channel being narrated by anyone else. Hank Green is an excellent science presenter. Sort of the "Bob Ross" of science. One can not forget the musical genius of Andrew Huang. I find this channel in particular to be a relaxing way to end a manic Monday.

Reminds me of looking at citylights from space.

I can see the blob as a living fossil incarning the bridge between plants and animal life. This organism is truely fascinating

isnt the G in fungi like the G in "go" and not like in "genome"?

anyone else think this is absolutely terrifying? the idea of a "microscopic" organism that just grows indefinitely, and can learn? i'm imagining something that becomes more intelligent as it grows larger, almost creating a nervous system of sorts, that slowly takes over the whole planet. obviously that's not what this is, but it's what this makes me imagine, and it's really creepy.

It kind of seems like backwards cytokinesis when the to slime molds join.

The Japanese subway system was actually modeled after a slime mold. They placed bits of nutrition in place of cities and scaled everything to be a little mini Japan made of food. Then they inoculated a slime mold at Tokyo and let it grow. They checked back 28 hours later and copied the system the slime mold made to use as the subway system.

Uh oh he mentioned slime. We're about to get 10 Million confused and angry 8 year olds in here.

So this year, I opened up my A/C to clean it. I had to do it a second time, mid-summer, because water was flooding out the front of it, even with a ridiculous downward tapering angle towards the back. What I found inside was a huge yellow-orange mass, resembling a giant egg yolk, with digested insect carapaces floating around inside it. The thing had expanded to block all the water flow tubes between front and back, which had, in turn, caused the flooding. It took a high pressure spray nozzle, and patience, to eventually clear this thing out of the A/C and restore it to normal functioning.

5:20 - Anyone else think of the Beatles... "Come together right now over me."

That was SUPER trippy. Never seen anything that in depth about slime mold. Seems alien.

It looks like a river delta

Had a fruiting body pop up in my garden, it was cool to see it develop. Started out looking like thick vanilla pudding, finished up brown and cristy. Then poof, a cloud of spores.

Next time I need to plan a public transport network I'm gonna use me the heck out of these things.

Obligatory bump for the youtube algorithm. :) I bet there are comparisons between the slime mold, and the youtube algorithm!!!

6:15 That sounds a lot like how fungi mate, fussing together and having more than 2 sexes.

Slime molds hold an elusive secret to liquid crystal like physiology regarding how to create a real life slime. Though they would only be the internal structure, as typical spines have a waterproof oily outer layer much like a skin, as well as several outer senses and the ability to create variable mega psuedopods. Something like a giant amoeba, but made of smaller cells, it'd probably move rather slowly, but it's motions would be amazing to watch.

"MICROcosmos" lol This was like calling a video about nebulae a geography lesson. Still cool af tho

it is a common misconception that "Live and Learn" is the theme song of the game Sonic Adventure 2, when in fact it is the theme song of slime molds

VERY COOL! Would love to see more on the slime molds, please.

Seen a number of species of these around my area. The ones that make grey blobs on the ground covered in spores, and the ones that make the teeny round baskets on little stalks, and those that create many little black filaments.

The way you present this research ..... I just love it 🥰

It’s a living, moving circulatory system! So fascinating!

They are artists that communicate. They can move materials around to fit their message.

OMG PLEASE EXPLAIN THOSE CLADE TERMS MORE!!! Thing I struggle with the most in taxonomy.

i had this yellow slime mold on the wooden lip of my raised garden, felt like pure goo. Then after a while it dried up and turned dark browned and while i was watering the plants i splashed it and it exploded in a dark brown cloud and it freaked me out.

This series is amazing to eat to. usually there isnt anything good to watch while eating so my food gets cold, so whenever a new one of these is out, i save it for supper so i can watch some quality content while i eat thank you for making these videos =)

@andrewhuang !!! youre permeating my research on more than music! bravo. i commend thee

Omg I love watching videos about slim molds. Please do more