True Facts: The Smartest Slime 

Keep learning at brilliant.org/zefrank Get started for free, and hurry-the first 200 people get 20% off an annual premium subscription.

As a molecular biologist who worked with DNA for many years, can confirm the way ZeFrank read out the DNA sequence is exactly what we do in lab. All day. Everyday.

It's impressive how it's 100% education and 100% comedy. They don't cut into eachother at all, perfect fusion cuisine of the two.

"...but what's _a-maze-ing_ (kill me)" completely broke me down into fits of goofy laughter. Well, even more so than the constant stream of giggles already taking place.

So I recently saw moving yellow slime mold during a walk in the woods. It was visually moving, so much so that I thought it might've been some sort of really weird caterpillar. Apparently the mold wasn't seen before in the "reserve" so I reported it to the people at the desk. Apparently it was non-toxic and not dangerous to the environment, but I was congratulated for finding it nonetheless.

I remember when I was studying slime molds and our professor told us of a case where an intern of hers accidentally left the lab window open during the weekend and the mold "ran away", so to speak. I had trouble believing the story at first, but the more I learn about them the more I am starting to believe...

I did science fair projects with slime molds back in the early 2000’s, including seeing if they could navigate mazes for food. Unfortunately, my ability to build slime mold proof mazes was not good enough and the dang things cheated and just grew over the walls to go straight over to the food. I love these bizarre and wonderful little things.

3:40 "Like the scream of a night demon." Got me falling out of my chair LMAO 🤣!!!

This is the first time ever I've been able to sit through nonstop images of amoeba because the desire to experience the content is greater than my squeamishness and disgust. Like, since a kid in school, I could not. Congrats, Ze Frank. Your comedy has cured a life long condition.

“Butt food isn’t always plopped in front of you.” I swear, this joke never gets old. 😂

7:14 "But what's amazingkillme is that the solution it settles on..." the way that line is so smoothly spoken is wonderful

so while i regret watching this while eating, this is by far one of the most fascinating subjects you've covered. more molds and fungi!!

In middle school I would watch zefrank videos and get excited to learn so much about animals, annoying my friends to death with fun facts. Now I’m getting a PhD in biomedical science, I thought I pretty much had the low-down on fungi (though it’s not what I study), and I am still in awe at how much I just learned and laughed from a zefrank video. Thank you! And sorry to my labmates who will learn about slime moulds against their will today.

ZeFrank’s way of describing things is better than any nature documentary I’ve seen

I really like Ze Frank's model of quality over quantity, you may have to wait, but when he uploads, it is ALWAYS a treat.

ZeFrank, you are my childhood. Thank you for being awesome and hilarious for however many years it’s been!

8:35 I think I watched this part 10 times over. What an angelic, beautiful sound to grace my sound holes.

When you started read the DNA sequences, I busted out laughing and have to pause to recover and type this. That was brilliant. Thank you!

This mans voice is so calming that if he was my doctor and told me that I had 4 weeks to live, I would be like oh sure. And leave with no knowledge of how serious the situation is.

8:12 you know what this means right? Big corporations and governments are gonna look for a way to use this to their advantage. Imagine losing your job to automation but instead of a bot you’re replaced with a damn slime mold. That’s just insult to injury right there.

It's great how the humor in these never fails. It hasn't grown old, become outdated, zefrank is just naturally funny. And you always learn something new!

7:15 "What's a-maze-ing, kill me-" got me so hard I lost my ability to take a full breath without it hurting. Thank you Frank, for delivering such good comedy. These documentaries are literally the only ones I can watch because otherwise I get bored.

That was such a poetic ending. Before the snail part. Edit: Never mind, I was writing that as the post credits were rolling. Poetry just dove head long into a dumpster fire.

Before i used to eagerly await his upload and watch them the second it's uploaded. Now ill go weeks restraining myself cause it's such a treat to watch! Man's a scientific & comedic genius.

I'm so happy Ze Frank didn't quit RU-vid. I remember the hellish state of this platform 5 years ago with his 4 year absence

I keep a worm compost bin, and I occasionally see little slime mold colonies in it! They are absolutely vital decomposers, just like worms, fungi, bugs, and bacteria. They are everywhere in outdoor environments, and because they're microscopic for 99% of their life cycles, they rarely get the attention or appreciation they deserve. Thank you so much for this video for our little blob friends! ^_^

I was not ready to hear you read DNA sequences like that. I had to pause and laugh for a minute straight :D

The slime passing on knowledge to other slimes is CRAZY to me

You know this guy is a legitimately good teacher. We actually come back just to eagerly hear what he has to teach us each video. I only wish school teachers had his capability to make it interesting.

I live near a forest where I often take walks and see slime. Never knew that slime was so smart. Going to take time to appreciate that now. Thanks you Ze Frank for the education.

As a 90s kid I grew up addicted to The Crocodile Hunter and any other nature show....As an adult I am so happy to have found this Gem of a channel! I could watch for hours and hours ✌️🤟🤘

I honestly love how excited he gets about this clever moving snot

I love how you use ACTUAL scientific terms such as "touchy touchy" and "food stank"

Time to get the lotion out

"Looks like a smoker's lung on pop-rocks." 🤣 You're the king of similes.

I've been following Ze / True Facts for close to seven years now. I can't think of any other channel that has done a better job creating content of continually improving quality while keeping the spark that made it so great to begin with. Ze cracks me up just as much as the first video I ever say (True Facts about the Mantis Shrimp), but can now make me go slack-jawed with awe, or even tear up at times. Thanks for the great work you do!

I love this man. When I was a teenager, I got stuck in a bad bout of depression. Didn’t shower for almost a month, couldn’t really move out of bed and barely ate. He would make these videos just sitting and talking to you and talking about life lessons and thoughts that you’d think alone in your room. Those videos helped me get out of bed and start showering and getting back to life. When I feel myself slipping back into that I go and find the teddy bear videos and older ones. I wish he’d still make those videos.

Can I get a ten minute video of ZeFrank just reading DNA sequences? It sounds like ASMR to me for some reason.

the 'cheat day' thing with the tiny bug being consumed made me laugh xD

Amazed at the many microscopic worlds that are all around us and completely ignored by the average person. The design of this world is incredible

You know… even when life doesn’t seem like it’s worth living, it’s always worth sticking around for another Ze Frank video.

I knew a kid who also marked where he'd been with mucus. We called him Blacktooth on account of his black tooth. Good to know he shares his innovation with this intrepid organism. Godspeed, Blacktooth. Godspeed.

I WAS LITERALLY JUST THINKING ABOUT MAKING A MOLD D&D CHARACTER. JUST A CLUMP OF MOLD. AND I WANTED TO DO RESEARCH. YOU PUT THIS OUT AT EXACTLY THE RIGHT TIME THANK YOU.

It's 2023 and this guy's still making his videos in 720p. The madlad.

I was chortling throughout this whole video, but I absolutely lost it at "It looks like a Goth sinus infection..." You are a *TREASURE*, ZeFrank, you truly are.

I studied Botany in college, with a course in Mycology, and I was really excited to see a video about plasmodial slime molds. They're so cool! I got to see one solve a maze in lab, and it was amazing.

This is some authentic Ze Frank commentary, between telling the camera man to switch shots because of how weird the current shot is, or describing things in the weirdest way possible...I can never get enough Ze Frank. P.S. when the nuclei split and it had teeth...my first thought was, "Looks like a demon coming to eat me" and then Ze said nearly the same thing, I'm so glad I'm slowly turning into him

that melding of 2 into 1 and the ensuing exchange of information looked more like a terrifying insight into Carpenter's Thing...

Wow. I love slime moulds and I've seen quite a few videos on them, but you summed up pretty much everything in one video; and with extra information on their full lifecycle and great visuals. That plus comedy in under 12 minutes! Bravo

2:26 read like a true kindergarten teacher. Thank you Zefrank

Don’t even care what the subject matter is… these “info comedy sketches” by Ze Frank are always so entertaining to watch. Never want them to end.

Ze Frank reading DNA sequences is now my ringtone.

yo im so glad this series is back, pls make more! ive been enjoying these for literally years lol

Once again, ZeFrank giving all us Dungeon Masters more material to incorporate into our D&D campaigns. Imagine you venture into the Abyss, to fight Juiblex, Demon Lord of Slimes. Only to discover a forest of stalks, on which rest colorful spheres full of spores. But you better not touch them, lest the spores hatch into slimes that try to eat you. Or, worse, you better hope you didn't arrive when all the stalks dried out, and then the wind picks up. Spores all over your skin, in your hair, in your _lungs._ If you survive all that, then you see, on the horizon, the _pulsing mass._ And it's coming right for you. Run all you like. Hide in the cyclopean structures dotted around the landscape. Juiblex WILL find you. So where do you take shelter in Slime Hell? Well, on the shell of the Titan Snail, of course. This beastie is more interested in eating the spore stalks to really be interested in humanoids. To the point where a whole city has been constructed on its shell. A moving refuge against the predations of Juiblex.

Bringing smiles to people is truly noble work. And Ze does it while educating us. Thank you, Ze.

This guy never ceases to make me chuckle and teach me at the same time.

This is seriously the best channel . Just found it a week ago and I’m hoping he keeps making regular videos . Can’t get enough

I do a lot of work in the woods in Oregon, and I always love coming across the different slime molds! I've mostly seen bright yellow ones, but occasionally I'll spot an orange one. I always take pictures of them, just in case I bump into the same slime mold again. I've got pictures of the same yellow slime mold from the morning and afternoon on the same day, and it's impressive how much it changed in a few hours!

In case anyone is curious, the DNA sequence Ze Frank read is from Chromosome 9 of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the yeast used to make beer.

So happy to see you do a video on slime molds! Such beautiful and fascinating little blobs

This timing is impeccable ..... Some HBO series you may have watched latley can relate very well

During the pandemic shutdown I bought a yellow slimemold as a pet. Named him "Blobby". Blobby ate a diet of oatmeal and grew big and strong. Too big and strong. I deprived him of further oatmeal to keep him at a manageable size. Realizing that the only nearby source of sustenance was me, soon he began plotting his escape. In a matter of days he started climbing the walls of the terrarium he lived in. Planning an escape. I watched with an equal mix of horror and awe as he approached the lid. Terrified I was about to unleash an unstoppable pulsating amorphous scourge upon the fragile and unique local ecosystem. I prepared a spray bottle filled with bleach to put him down if he forced me to. I screamed and begged "Please Blobby don't make me do this!! Don't make me kill you! I love you Blobby! You are my child! I have the high ground Blobby you can't win this! Just go back inside and be a nice little slimemold and you can have all the oatmeal you can eat!!". But Blobby didn't listen. Blobby didn't have any ears, and he was a bit of a dick. He climbed the underside of the lid toward the air hole in the center. Making these strange hanging upside down snotty tendrils as he went. I sprayed the bleach, but it didn't work, it only made things so, so much worse. Blobby was mutating, evolving in real time before my eyes, realizing he had to evolve the ability to realize in order to realize how to defeat me and usurp the human race. He endeavored to use me as a symbiote, crawling through my ears while I slept and taking my brain for his own. Eventually he reached beyond the confines of his terrarium home with faint tendrils trying to escape unseen. I was forced to put him down and hold him a proper viking funeral. Burning him alive. I have a Blobby shaped hole in my heart forever now. He is never far from my thoughts. Ah parent hood. Its so beautiful when the young ones leave the nest and you have to murder them to save the human race :,) ❤ AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArgsjdkcicuababfof7ahwbfixushrofuenfdisnfidusvsfog8thsbsskfotSTOPHIMSTOPHIMSTOPHIMSTOPHIMHELIESHELIES Thank you zfronk from the great documentary about me me me me the completely harm less species known to the human race us us us as slime molds. Get a harnless slime mold as a pet. They are fun and education and will not hurt you. Let them cuddle your ear it is as awwwwdorable! moldsHELIESHELIESDONTLISTENRUNRUNRUNRUMRUNHIDEHIDEHIDEHIDEHIDEAIRTIGHTEARPLUGSanfod82849jsbduaonfisuabfowjd2*#,"[÷9,$÷*•♡□¡●£39 I cried for days after that and I started to get worse and worse headaches. Seering pain like I've never felt, just behind my eyes. I've felt a presence in my mind ever since. It started slowly at first. A movement of my hand I didn't intend. I became averse to bright light. I stopped salting my food, and I couldn't seem to eat enough yet I was losing weight! It was truly fantastic I am so glad I got my lovely pet slimemold! I craves oatmeal. A focus on information or news Ive never cared about before. I've had gaps in my memory, blackouts where I do strange and horrible things only to discover the aftermath when I recover conciousness. I was diagnosed with trauma induced fuege states. Eventually they said I had schizophrenia. But I know the truth, Blobby succeeded. I didn't burn him, he tricked me with a hallucination, false sensory input. The tendrils were only so faint because they were only but the slimy trails he left behind when he crawled out. The slimy hanging ropes of his flesh were his children, and a decoy. He makes me... he makes me break into houses and drop them into peoples ears. They crawl inside and slowly take control. Just like they did while I instantly slept that night. Oh how I wish... I desperately wish I had never gotten a slime mold in the first place. I have dreams.. nightmares where I can see the plans he slowly is unraveling. [[But we'll get to those plans after a brief word from our sponsor! Slimemold ear plugs®️™️ are a brilliant new evironmentally safe and non infectious design to block out the sound of yourself screaming in pain as the slime mold ear plugs don't infect and consume your brain! Slime mold ead plugs are revolutionary and completely safe! By efficiently conforming through the inside of your ear they block out 99% of the sound of your not panicked family not begging you to not assimilate them! Unlike other earplugs that always fall out slimemold ear plugs cannot be removed! They even clean your earwax for you! You know the opposite sex loves ear wax free slimey ears! You will be sure to physically combine yourselves into a new organism! You can get slimemold earplugs for free just by taking a nice relaxing nap on the nearest moist forest floor. Use my promo code "Dribbleoatmealaroundyourselftoatteactcutesquishyfriends" to save 50% off your free earplugs! Talk about savings! And as a bonus! Put the slime mold onto all your Q tips and give them to your friends and the homeless as generous gifts! They even spore and in addition to not infecting your dog they look like fashionable jewelry! Humans which I am one truly do appreciate the fancy shinys. Primitive inferior gullible apes of which that I am one. Now back to the normal world that is continuing as it always has and isn't being taken over by fungal overlords!)) He's raising an army, infecting us one by one. Eventually once he infects every last living thing on this planet he's going to digest us all and fuse with his progeny. Blobby didn't evolve on earth.. no. He came on a meteor flung from a doomed planet, the end result of his plans for us. Sporing out into the universe to consume every life that was, is, and will be. There will be no stars, no plants, no moons, no life, no angels or demons, there will only be Blobbly. Faint tendrils connecting all matter, like neurons in a cosmic brain. With my last moments of freedom I summoned all my willpower to leave this comment. Please, someone, come and put an end to our cursed existence. Before Blobby succeeds in his evil plans. Burn me, burn all of us. Dont listen to what we say, he will try and trick you, to pull your emotional strings and convince you this is only the tail of a mad man. That they aren't really infected. Lies. Lies. LIES!! LIES!!! LIIESSSSS!!!! Burn us before he infects he too. Before he infects us all... YEEEEsssssss... Come to me. Come and stop me. Come and bringgggg me morreee foooddddd. JOinn usssss.

Is this art, comedy, educational content? Or is this simply awesome? This channel is amazing

I thought I had a mind that rejoiced in the theater of the absurd but you have taught me a lesson. You have applied it to reality and taught us thing along the way, for this I salute you! i also wish I could write and work with you. Please don't ever stop.

Thoroughly enjoy your videos, particularly this one, for the humour and fascinating facts you present on the myriad of subject matter you present. Thank you so much for brightening the days. Stay well and keep safe.

My absolute favorite running joke of this channel is what I like to call the “butt-but phenomenon” Pure genius

Okay, the bulk of this video made me giggle, but that last comment about the dog getting into the blueberries literally made my laugh out loud. Please, never change.

I already knew a bit about slime mold but I decided to watch this video anyway, and I'm glad I did. This the first video I've seen from the channel and I love it already!

The last line of the B roll was delivered with such joy. 🤣🤣

I have a friend who’s an engineer who acts so dang superior. Wait until I show him this and he realizes he’s only as smart as single-cell slime.

I legit lost it and laughed out loud when he started reading the DNA sequence. Bravo.

"Scream of a night demon" had me weeping.

I showed this to my 70 year old Mom earlier and we giggled all the way through it. We have the same sense of humor. Love ❤ all these videos. I use your Playlist to sleep at night. I'm usually smirking while I fall asleep.

I love you ZeFrank, usually laugh my ass off, definitely makes breaks at work more enjoyable lmao.

3:43 suddenly a mouth full of teeth appeared and the fangs went open right away looking ready to strike. Scared the bejesus out of me. Edit: ok, shouldn't have paused and realized Ze Frank would mention it ^^

@3:26 "Then Preggers" my lungs are in space

The very first T.E.D. Talks that I'd seen had Ze Frank's presentation and it opened the doors for 2 of my favorite things to watch on youtube. Dude.. you're an awesome and comedically brilliant son of a ..gun. . I'm glad to see your still at it man. Cheers!

It's funny that despite watching almost a dozen videos about these slime molds, you still taught me something new about them. Your research is very in-depth, and by far the most informative and entertaining when it comes to covering topics about living creatures.

I love how the lifeforms he covers just continue to become more and more primitive.

9:19 dudes on the side be like “dude, we’ve both done it now you got to do it too”

Always love your humourous, interesting & educational takes. Thank you for all the work it takes to make these videos. Keep going!! 👌🙂👍

It's amazing how an organism with no brain can learn so much and pass on that knowledge. And I love the way you explain it.your videos never fail to impress me.

incredible images, very instructive, hilarious, and a strangely touching ending! one of your best yet!

You cell language speaking earned my sub. As well as your creative presentation of unique and awesome natural phenomenon. Thanks!

"...using this strategy it can solve a maze, but what's amazing kill me is that the solution..." Love that line - had to rewind to make sure I'd heard what I thought I'd heard. 🙂

I watched while half asleep and was scared shit out at this 3:49

I've always loved slime molds I'm so happy that zefrank made a video on themc they deserve it!

I didn’t get a notice when you posted this, I check back often because you are my favorite!! You never disappoint. Thanks!!!

2:34 Damn that actually worked. Thanks mate!

i demand a Ze Frank audiobook of the entire human Genome!

In college zoology we got extra credit for growing a slime mold at home. I was proud of mine, even though he looked like Big Bird diarrhea. Looks aren’t everything.😊

I'm so addicted to your videos now. Best content I've found on RU-vid in a long time.

this true facts series has been so consistently brilliant for years

this whole series was so helpful in my "sex, evolution, and behaviour" course last semester I am so grateful for the oodles of examples to apply when discussing animal sexuality

That Tyler Durden-esque;"Kill me..." killed me :D

please never stop making these videos! If you need to, it's ok if you need to go sclerotia until Jerry taps you on the membrane to summon you once again.

Aside form the 10/10 describing; i appreciated strongly the sources used. And then i started thinking about the INSANE mount of work it must take to make one of your videos. Not only spitting facts, but making it entertaining. Goated.

5:19 I’ll never get tired of that joke 💀

Omw how entertaining is this.....LOVED watching this! These documentaries are 1 In a billion. Keep those videos coming.im doing marathon on your channel xx

Never gone from not knowing a channel exists to subbing to said channel so quickly