What can slime mold teach us about the universe?

What can slime molds tell us about the large-scale structure of the universe and the evolution of galaxies? These things might seem incongruous, yet both are part of nature, and Earthly slime molds seem to have something ...

Sunflower extract fights fungi to keep blueberries fresh

Opening a clamshell of berries and seeing them coated in fuzzy mold is a downer. And it's no small problem. Gray mold and other fungi, which cause fruit to rot, lead to significant economic losses and food waste.

Programmed cell death may be 1.8 billion years old

Apoptosis, often referred to as programmed cell death, is a fundamental process crucial to the growth and development of multicellular organisms. This process, or a primordial form of it, is also observed in single-celled ...

'Swarmalators' better envision synchronized microbots

Imagine a world with precision medicine, where a swarm of microrobots delivers a payload of medicine directly to ailing cells. Or one where aerial or marine drones can collectively survey an area while exchanging minimal ...

Control of cell population sizes: When is enough enough?

Researchers at the University of Basel have uncovered a cell-intrinsic mechanism, that controls the appropriate number of T cells in the organism and thus ensures that the immune system functions properly. This mechanism ...

Advances in selective laser sintering of polymers

Researchers at Fudan University, China, reviewed the fundamental mechanisms and recent developments in the selective laser sintering (SLS) of polymers, which is of great help for researchers to learn more about the fantastic ...

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Mold

Molds (or moulds; see spelling differences) are fungi that grow in the form of multicellular filaments called hyphae. Molds are not considered to be microbes but microscopic fungi that grow as single cells are called yeasts. A connected network of these tubular branching hyphae has multiple, genetically identical nuclei and is considered a single organism, referred to as a colony.

Molds do not form a specific taxonomic or phylogenetic grouping, but can be found in the divisions Zygomycota, Deuteromycota and Ascomycota. Some molds cause disease or food spoilage, others play an important role in biodegradation or in the production of various foods, beverages, antibiotics and enzymes.

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