‘This is dangerous’: slime moulds and the bitter debate over the nature of intelligence

Scientists are battling over whether supposedly simple organisms should be considered ‘intelligent’.

The outcome could reshape our understanding of the natural world – and our own place within it Forty years ago, as an undergraduate in Hokkaido, Toshiyuki Nakagaki came upon a lemon-yellow stain in a petri dish. That encounter turned him into a doyen of slime mould research – and fed a storm of biological and philosophical debate about the meanings of life and intelligence that persists to this day.…