In this day of increasingly aging populations and demographic downturns, societies look for ways to enhance the lives of their citizens, hoping to make them longer and healthier. We have discussed senior mental health in these posts on a number of occasions, and I want to post helpful links to all of them here, but I think I deleted my list or maybe left it in the freezer or somewhere*.
While I have discussed how to deal with temporary memory loss and what to avoid in your daily life that makes you appear to be senile or even dead, I have not really talked much about the cutting edge research that is going on with slime molds.
Now, I know what you are thinking. "What does slime mold have to do with our aging minds and memory loss?!"
That is an excellent thought, and I suggest for starters that you write it down before you forget it. Write it on something large like a coffee table, so that you will not inadvertently put it through the wash or leave it in the oven.
While you are jotting that down, let me continue to explain about this cutting edge research. Humans have big brains and in addition to being highly intelligent as shown by results of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), they also have excellent abilities to think about the future and dwell on the past. In other words, our temporal awareness is very advanced. Cats, on the other hand, while having brains very similar to our own, score very low on the WAIS test mostly due to lack of interest and general lethargy. Holding the pencil also proved challenging. But through persistent research, scientists have come to the conclusion that cats have only about a 16-hour working memory. This seems to indicate that brain size itself may correlate well with memory.
Imagine the shock then amongst scientists when they discovered that something that does not actually HAVE a brain nevertheless still has memory. Slime molds are very low on the evolutionary ladder and do not actually have a brain. But they CAN remember where they have been! This may seem like a pathetically simple process, but when you consider how many people you have seen wandering around in mall parking lots looking for their cars, you can see that remembering where you have been is indeed an important mental skill.
So how do the slime molds do it? Apparently they leave a trail of slime, their slime, behind them as they move, marking the routes they have taken. The trail of slime allows them to determine what – if anything – is at its end. If there is the sugar placed there by the scientists, they will "remember" that and follow the trail back to their reward.
How does this apply to us?
It is a well-known fact that human tissues can be cultivated on animals, so the ability to manipulate genetic material is already well established. What needs to be done to solve senior memory problems is the reverse. Genetic material from creatures who remember without brains needs to be transferred to humans to enable us to "get around" our mental problems and access other ways of remembering where our car is, for example. The ability to leave a slime trail back to your car would be incredibly beneficial to many seniors who go to great lengths to make their cars conspicuous (think flags, ribbons and even small teddy bears on the aerial) but then exit the mall on the wrong side and wander around for hours in the hot sun.
I know what you are thinking again. "But humans don't make slime, silly!"
Except for the "silly" part, your point is well taken. Indeed, humans do not make slime. However, we often DO carry around a lot of excess weight in the form of blubber. Through the wonder of genetic engineering, this blubber could easily be converted to slime which could ooze from – say – the pores in our lower legs, leaving a trail back to the car in the parking lot. This would not only empower us to "remember" important things even though our brains were aging, but it would also enable us to "burn off" those excess calories – truly a win-win situation.
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*I found the list in my hand!
Mental-Health Tips for Seniors
Five Ways Not to be Dead
Forever Young
Across the Event Boundary Backwards
Dieting Made Easy
Voice-Activate Your Memory Chips
Your Second Wind
Pussies Riot and Seniors Snooze
The Brain Bane of Memory
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