SciShow Tangents

Trick or Treat Month: Slime with Alexis Nikole Nelson!

Oct 31, 2023

Alexis Nikole Nelson, an expert in finding slimy, sticky, gross stuff that you can eat, joins the podcast for Trick or Treat Month. The hosts explore the fascinating world of slime, including slimy plants and animals. They also discuss using hagfish slime, corn roots, and okra slime for jewelry. Other topics include sneaky subscriptions, national parks, and slimy behaviors in organisms like glowing mucus and biofilms.

42:26

Creator website

Episode guests

Alexis Nikole Nelson

AI Summary

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Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Slime molds have electrical properties and can be used as electronic components in bio-computing.

Various animals, including hagfish, use slime for defense and reproductive purposes.

Deep dives

Slimy Slime Tech: Exploring the Potential of Slime in Technology

Slime molds and bacteria exhibit fascinating properties that have caught the attention of scientists. Slime molds like Bicerum polycephalum can solve mazes and carry out complex tasks that resemble computation. They respond to environmental stimuli and exhibit electrical properties, making them intriguing subjects for bio-computing research. Additionally, bacteria can form biofilms and create structures like snotites, which have unique properties due to their extremophile nature. These findings open up possibilities for using slime in electronic components like memristors and exploring unconventional computing methods. While bio-computing is an emerging field, the potential applications of slime in technology are still being explored.

Introduction

3min

The Fascinating World of Slime

16min

Exploring Materials for Jewelry

2min

Discovering and Cancelling Sneaky Subscriptions with Rocket Money

2min

Appreciating National Parks and Leaving Them Better

2min

Sherpa Pullovers and Blue Glowing Slime

2min

Slimy Behaviors in Organisms

22min

Trick or Treat Month returns... and this time it's personal! Join us for another month of spooky themes and special surprise guest apparitions! Try not to get too scared!

And so we close the ancient, flesh-bound spell book on another Trick or Treat Month... but we're going out on top, baby! Alexis Nikole Nelson has appeared, as if by magic, to lead us into the deep, dark woods and point out all the slimy, sticky, gross stuff on the ground that she says we can eat. I guess I trust her!

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[This or That]

Round 1 - Blue glowing slime

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/tube-worm-slime-displays-long-lasting-self-powered-glow

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5103273/

Round 2 - Eating parents’ slime

https://animalmicrobiome.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42523-023-00243-x

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/caecilians-limbless-amphibian-skin-feeding-young-cloaca

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101029104603.htm

https://analyticalsciencejournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pmic.200500591

Round 3 - Snottites