{"id":20932,"date":"2025-10-01T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T17:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/driftlessareamag.com\/unicdn\/?p=20932"},"modified":"2025-10-09T01:13:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T06:13:14","slug":"points-north-my-little-slime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/driftlessareamag.com\/unicdn\/2025\/10\/01\/points-north-my-little-slime\/","title":{"rendered":"Points North- My Little Slime"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A <\/span><\/strong><\/span>few years ago, Jasmine Lu was just starting her PhD program in computer science at the University of Chicago.<\/strong> She worked in a lab that integrated devices with the human body.<\/span><\/p>\n

And she knew she wanted to try and incorporate a living organism into a device. She played around with plants, mushrooms, algae \u2014 but they were too picky. Then she discovered a not-so-picky bright yellow blob: slime mold.<\/span><\/p>\n

The slime mold grew on everything Jasmine tested it on: wires, tubes, random pieces of plastic. And she learned it could do something amazing: conduct electricity.<\/span><\/p>\n

So Jasmine designed a smartwatch using the slime mold as a \u201cliving wire.\u201d The only catch? It needed to be fed and watered to work.<\/span><\/p>\n

It got Jasmine wondering, what would happen if our devices were alive? If we needed to feed them to make them work? Would it change the way people care about these pieces of plastic and metal we\u2019re so quick to replace every few years?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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