A brainless thinking blob? say what?! via unexplained-mysteries: Image Credit: Nirosha Murugan / Harvard University Scientists have observed a type of slime mold that is surprisingly brainy given its total lack of a brain. Obligatory political jokes aside, the research - which concerns a type of slime mold known as Physarum polycephalum - has forced scientists to reconsider what constitutes 'brainless'. Intriguingly, despite having no 'brain' to speak of, this blob-like organism was found to be capable of surprisingly complex calculations and decision-making (for a blob anyway). To find out more, researchers from the Wyss Institute at Harvard University and the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University conducted an experiment designed to test its environmental awareness. The findings revealed a "novel preference and sensing capability in the unicellular organism", with the mold using its body as "both a distributed sensor array and computational substrate." The study suggests that