Slime Mold - Physarum polycephalum

This product is a placeholder only and can not be purchased, but can be used in Blueprints as a product to explain its features and functions.

Physarum polycephalum are basically enormous single cells with thousands of nuclei. They are formed when individual flagellated cells swarm together and fuse. The result is one large bag of cytoplasm with many diploid nuclei. These "giant cells" have been extremely useful in studies of cytoplasmic streaming (the movement of cell contents) because it is possible to see this happening even under relatively low magnification. In addition, the large size of the slime mold "cell" makes them easier to manipulate than most cells.