The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, March 12, 1979, Page Page 7, Image 7
'Slim
r.AIINIKSVIMR Fla
(AP) ? They look like
melted pints of vanilla ice
cream and have a pretty
primitive sex life ? but
slime molds may hold the
clues to the origin of human
lif*? a TTnivprcifv nf PlnriHa
AIA 14 V/1AA VA UA VJ V* JL AVA A Vtt4
microbiologist says.
Henry Aldrich, director of
the school's electron
microscope lab, and six
graduate researchers are
studying nearly 500 species
of slime mold. The
researchers are observing
slime molds' primitive
form of sexual reproduc
tion.
Slime molds are actually
colonies of single cells
generally found growing on
damp soil, rotting logs and
other decaying organic
material. Aldrich said they
were common to Florida's
moist woods where they
looked like glistening,
viscous masses of slime.
'The slime molds tell us
how cells become tissues,
how thev stick together and
cooperate with each other,"
Aldrich said. 4'By studying
their behavior in a controlled
environment, we
hope to discover more about
human cells and how they
stick together."
Slime molds measure up
to four inches wide and
their average lifetime is
four months, but some
species have lived since
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S@ 1801 Mi
Colum
Tel<
iy' clues
1960 in a lab at
University of Wisconsin
Madison, said Aldrich.
"With proper food a
climate, I don't see why I
molds couldn't li
forever," Aldrich sa
4'Year after year they coi
eat bacteria, reoroducea
do everything good slii
molds do."
Aldrich said slime mo
had got out of hand (
spring morning in Texas
years ago when they V
begun crawling over i
landscape, up teleph(
poles and on the sides
houses. He said lo<
newspapers called I
slime molds the "Tej
Blob."
"When there are m(
weather conditions,
mnlHc will armi; nut
A ilV'AUO fT AAA V/ TT UUl
control," Aldrich sa
"They move perceptit
creeping along three or f<
inches an hour, which is f
for a blob of cells."
The microbiologist s
slime molds were hunj
creatures whose favoi
foods were oatmeal flak
A r* M rl aitam V\r
uatici m auu even uc
food.
'They're quite fond
baby food," he said. "1
we prefer feeding th
| bacteria because baby fi
[ isn't good for their growt
He said samples of sli
| molds were brought to
1 lab where thev were fro
WAVE
1 Centra
aim Street/Jefferson San;
, . ? -1 ?
bia, South Carolina 292(
ephone: (803) 779-8325
REDKEN"
to life
nt. 1: ; j -i" . _i?_.
?-**<= wiui nquia nurogen, suet
at thinly and placed on a slid
The individual cell is th<
nd magnified 300,000 times ar
the examined through tl
ve fluorescent screen of i
id. electron microscope.
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