![]() These skills let slime molds do impressively well at some human tasks. ![]() In a Borgian twist, slime molds can even learn about their environment by fusing with other slime molds. Slime molds even have a kind of spatial memory, in the form of a slime that they leave behind once they've moved through an area. It's not exactly the most humanlike form, but it's capable of feats we'd normally associate with intelligence.Īs a 2016 study noted, slime molds can solve mazes, act as if repeated past events will continue into the future, and learn to tolerate substances they avoid at first. The pulsing mass can expertly find the shortest path to food, building a series of tube-like structures that circulate nutrients and chemical signals. These creatures are called slime molds, and they're actually single cells containing many nuclei that can spread out over several square feet. When you think of a genius, you might imagine a famous scientist or your favorite musician-not a branching yellowish ooze growing over the rotting stumps in your local forest. Here are a few examples of brainless organisms that are actually pretty smart. and dismissing simpler behavior as mechanistic, reflexive, and hard-wired does not do justice to the behavioral complexities of even the simplest of organisms,” University of Gronigen psychologist Marc van Duijn and his colleagues write in a widely cited 2006 paper on cognition.ĭepending on your definition, some basic hallmarks of intelligence-from decision-making to learning-can even be found in creatures that don't have brains at all. “Reserving the term 'cognition' for typically human problem-solving abilities. But while human brains are extraordinary, we don't have a monopoly on intelligence. Our modern brain is an evolutionary feat more than 520 million years in the making, and it is the key to everything that makes us human. Our brains much more than our brawn account for our evolutionary successes-as well as our sometimes devastating impacts on the planet. ![]() There's no denying that human intelligence makes our species stand out from other life on Earth.
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