Amoebas are tiny sacks of watery liquid with thin membranes and as living things go they are completely and utterly brainless. However it doesn't stop them from being not only quite intelligent, but also real good team players.
Slime mold amoebas crawl around the forest eating decaying leaves and rotting wood. When the food becomes scarce they all gather in one place for a community meeting. Then they squeeze tightly together forming a shape like a slug. This slug crawls around like a real slug, and all the amoebas composing it cooperate remarkably well - they don't fight about which is the front and which is the back and move smoothly front end forward. When the slug finds a spot it likes (somehow all the amoebas must be in agreement about that too), it stops crawling and starts stretching up as high as it can. Again, there is no fighting among the amoebas about who get to be on top, and who sacrifices himself to become a part of the stalk. Indeed, the ones on top are the lucky ones, because they get to become the spores and to fly out of the ball on top in search of a nice place to start a new community.
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Now it gets even crazier! The amoebas don't eat all of the yammy bacterias they like so much, but bring some with them to the slug-forming fest to eat later, while they are busy forming their little towers, and, some scientists suspect, may be packing some inside the spores for in case there is nothing to eat when they land.
I find it very interesting that the simplest single-celled creatures on earth can think, organize, assume different tasks as needed, and even bring lunch to work!
And if they can form a slug which can crawl forward without getting totally frustrated about which is the front and which is the back, and if they can then shape shift into something like a tiny Space Needle, then why can't they make more complex shapes, looking like people, for instance? What if many individuals are not really human, but slime mold? That would also make it possible for the vampires to exist. They would definitely be able to turn to vapor to enter through the key holes and to live forever.
And this book is for the super geeks:
Slime mold amoebas crawl around the forest eating decaying leaves and rotting wood. When the food becomes scarce they all gather in one place for a community meeting. Then they squeeze tightly together forming a shape like a slug. This slug crawls around like a real slug, and all the amoebas composing it cooperate remarkably well - they don't fight about which is the front and which is the back and move smoothly front end forward. When the slug finds a spot it likes (somehow all the amoebas must be in agreement about that too), it stops crawling and starts stretching up as high as it can. Again, there is no fighting among the amoebas about who get to be on top, and who sacrifices himself to become a part of the stalk. Indeed, the ones on top are the lucky ones, because they get to become the spores and to fly out of the ball on top in search of a nice place to start a new community.
1.
2. 
3.
4. 
Now it gets even crazier! The amoebas don't eat all of the yammy bacterias they like so much, but bring some with them to the slug-forming fest to eat later, while they are busy forming their little towers, and, some scientists suspect, may be packing some inside the spores for in case there is nothing to eat when they land.
I find it very interesting that the simplest single-celled creatures on earth can think, organize, assume different tasks as needed, and even bring lunch to work!
And if they can form a slug which can crawl forward without getting totally frustrated about which is the front and which is the back, and if they can then shape shift into something like a tiny Space Needle, then why can't they make more complex shapes, looking like people, for instance? What if many individuals are not really human, but slime mold? That would also make it possible for the vampires to exist. They would definitely be able to turn to vapor to enter through the key holes and to live forever.
And this book is for the super geeks:
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