For Immediate Release

PLASMODIAL SLIME MOLDS URGE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA AND OPEN MEXICAN BORDER

Independent Policy Institute At Hampshire College Releases New Policy Research By Visiting Non-Human Scholars – Slime Molds Address National And Global
Issues In Collaboration With Faculty And Students – Species Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

A new policy research institute at Hampshire College has determined that legalizing marijuana may remedy the American drug epidemic, and that open borders
might benefit people of all nationalities. These insights, which have been relayed to officials in the Trump Administration and the United Nations, are especially
significant because the research institute – known as the Plasmodium Consortium – is the first in the world to feature policy analysis by non-human scholars.
“They’re all slime molds,” says consortium secretary Jonathon Keats. “Their advice is objective, and transcends our polarized political environment, because
they don’t belong to our species.”

The Plasmodium Consortium has worked for the past year with Hampshire College faculty and students, who have translated some of the most contentious is-
sues of our time into scenarios that slime molds can confront in the confines of plastic petri dishes. “We build simplified models,” explains Hampshire biology
professor Megan Dobro, who serves as scientific attaché to the consortium. In their simplicity, the models unpack complex issues and lend clarity to policy
advice.

The most direct analyses provided by the non-human scholars are logistical. In the decades leading up to the formation of the Plasmodium Consortium, labora-
tories around the world discovered that the plasmodial slime mold Physarum polycephalum has exceptional problem-solving capabilities, evolved over billions
of years of foraging. For instance, a laboratory at the University of the West of England has demonstrated that slime mold can self-organize. Taking advantage
of sophisticated mechanisms such as quorum sensing, the gelatinous superorganisms will spread into thin networks identical to national highway systems when
grown on maps with cities represented by spots of nutrient.

Building on these impressive planning skills, Plasmodium Consortium scholars have spent the past semester studying two multivariable problems that continue
to befuddle human policy-makers. One group is researching public transportation in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts – where Hampshire is located
– to design bus routes that will more equitably serve economically disadvantaged populations. Another group is investigating food deserts – areas where impov-
erished communities struggle to access healthful ingredients – determining how the slim pickings of convenience stores might be effectively supplemented with
special zoning for supermarkets. In the future, the scholars will calculate where those markets could be optimally positioned.

“But from the beginning, we’ve believed that slime molds were equally capable of researching more abstract problems,” says Mr. Keats, whose background is
in experimental philosophy, and whose responsibilities as consortium secretary include interspecies communication. “Over more than half a billion of years,
they’ve had to overcome challenges including ice ages and collisions with asteroids – events even more calamitous and varied than those instigated this past
year by the Trump administration.”

One topic the Plasmodium Consortium is investigating is human well-being, which the scholars are studying in terms of the relationship between material wealth
and environmental damage caused by mining and manufacturing. Given a choice between environments with high concentrations of nutrient and repellant,
and environments with low concentrations of both, slime molds consistently migrate toward the latter and thrive as a result. On this basis, the consortium has
dispatched a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt. “The United States government should protect the environment even to the
detriment of short-term economic growth,” the letter asserts. “For instance, offshore oil drilling should be banned.”

The issue of immigration has also been scrutinized by the Plasmodium Consortium. Scholars have focused on border control, investigating whether a wall is
preferable to free passage between nations. The problem was modeled by dividing petri dishes in half, and placing populations of slime mold on each side. To
simulate the fact that different countries have different resources, half of each dish was coated in glucose and the other half in protein, two nutrients regularly
consumed by P. polycephalum. One dish was prepared with an impenetrable plastic barrier down the middle. The other was free of obstructions. After a period
of several days, the unconstrained slime molds were found to join together and thrive in the open border zone, suggesting that borders may be especially vital
regions if allowed to develop without government interference. Although these results remain very tentative, and more study is needed to fully understand what
the slime molds are telling us, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen has been briefed, as has the United Nations.

Drug policy is the final subject taken up by the consortium during its first year of operation. Slime molds were charged with investigating how availability of
soft drugs such as marijuana might impact dependency on hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin: to determine whether cannabis is a gateway to dangerous
chemical addiction or a gateway from addiction to well-being. Confronted with a binary choice between a highly-addictive chemical and a nutritionally-balanced
meal, slime mold populations consistently choose the former, with consequences that can be fatal. However when presented with a chemical gradient between
the addictive substance and nutrients – equivalent to availability of gateway drugs in a human environment – P. polycephalum has shown a tendency to migrate
away from the hard stuff but not the opposite. Although the results are still preliminary, they were so remarkable that consortium secretary Jonathon Keats com-
municated them directly to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, sending a letter stating the slime molds’ position that “cannabis and its chemical derivatives
should be legalized by the United States government.”

Results of this research are currently available for public viewing in a special exhibition at the Hampshire College Art Gallery, organized by gallery director
Amy Halliday, who serves as outreach coordinator for the Plasmodium Consortium. Even those who cannot visit can engage the consortium, notes Ms. Halliday.
Mobile research units, containing slime mold, petri dishes and nutrient, are freely available to interested parties on request.

“Given the partisan rancor of contemporary politics, we expect that the unbiased insights of slime molds will be especially appreciated by all sides,” says Mr.
Keats, who has nominated the species for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. “By following their lead, we can move beyond our habitual positions and opinions. Even
if they’re occasionally mistaken, we can all benefit from getting outside of ourselves by considering the world from their non-human perspective.”

For more information, please visit: https://sites.hampshire.edu/gallery/the-plasmodium-symposium/