The Daily Populous

The Brainless Slime That Can Learn By Fusing

They are slime molds —yellow, oozing, amoeba-like organisms found on decaying logs and other moist areas.

Now, using the same bridge-crossing experiment, she has also shown that slime molds can transfer what they’ve learned by merging with each other.

She brought naïve slime molds that had never encountered the repellent chemicals next to habituated ones that were already used to them.

Even if three naïve molds fused with a habituated one, the resulting entity still shows signs of habituation.

And if she separated the two molds after they had been allowed to fuse, the formerly naïve one still showed signs of habituation.

So something moves across between the molds, granting the naïve ones the memories of the habituated ones.

This process might allow slime molds to better adapt to their environments, allowing separate “individuals” to benefit from their collective knowledge by becoming one. »

77-year-old sentenced to 10 years for growing marijuana

Authored by usatoday.com

One of the detectives said he smelled it more than a hundred times before — unharvested marijuana plants.

A search warrant would be obtained, and investigators would eventually say White was growing more than 1,700 marijuana plants.

He was convicted in 1990 of manufacturing more than 600 marijuana plants and in 2004 of manufacturing more than 100 marijuana plants. »

3.4 Magnitude Earthquake Probably Caused by Explosion Hits North Korea

Authored by sputniknews.com

China earthquake center reports that a 3.4 magnitude earthquake hit the territory of North Korea.

A 3.4-magnitude earthquake hit the northeastern part of North Korea, China's Earthquake Networks Center (CENC) said Saturday.

"On September 23, at 16:29 [08:29 GMT] local time a 3.4-earthquake (suspected explosion) occurred in North Korea (41.4 degrees north latitude, 129.1 degrees east longitude), the depth of 0 km," the seismologists said. »

Walking to work or doing the vacuuming can extend your life

Authored by newscientist.com

One in 12 deaths could be prevented with 30 minutes of physical activity five days a week.

That’s the conclusion from the world’s largest study of physical activity, which analysed data from more than 130,000 people across 17 countries.

At the start of the study, participants provided information on their socioeconomic status, lifestyle behaviours and medical history. »

Hurricane victims call sex hotline after FEMA mistakenly tweets wrong number

Authored by wgntv.com

Several Hurricane Irma victims called a 1-800 number for help and were offered phone sex instead of hurricane relief assistance.

The Miami Herald reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Region 4 office accidentally tweeted the number Wednesday, which offered assistance to people dealing with damaged roofs.

The number was supposed to be a “1-888” number, not a “1-800” number. »