The project “Behind the blob, the research” will run “around global warming” in order to experience it “on a living organism” and of “collect data”, explained on Franceinfo Thursday, October 21, the biologist who pilots it, Audrey Dussutour. This participatory experiment launched Wednesday wants to give a blob to 10,000 apprentice researchers to allow them to do research, detailed the research director at CNRS.
Applications are open to volunteers over 8 years old. The objective is to see how the blob, this unicellular organism with extraordinary capacities, accustomed to temperate countries, could react to global warming.
franceinfo: What will the experimentation consist of?
Audrey Dussutour: Our project is around global warming. We want to see how it will affect the behavior of the blob. There are two objectives: to introduce the scientific approach to as many people as possible, from data collection to the publication of an article, and to experiment with global warming on a living organism. Each volunteer will receive a specific protocol, will have to manipulate the temperature and watch the effects on the blob. They will be asked to look at the growth of the blob and its behavior under different temperature regimes. We will provide a lot of tutorials and video protocols.
Can the blob really give us answers?
It is an organism that looks like an omelet, which is composed of a single cell, when we have 100,000 billion, but it remains an organism which can learn and transmit knowledge to its counterparts who have memory. Who can find the shortest path in a maze? How to optimize your diet? In fact, it can solve problems that often appear complex to us.
What exactly are you looking to know from this experience?
Often times, in the imagination of people, global warming is an increase of 1.5 degrees celsius. In fact, the most important are the sudden changes in temperature. We have already noticed in the laboratory that, as soon as you suddenly change the temperature, it does not go very well for the blob. However, it is a key organism in the ecosystem because it mineralizes organic matter, that is to say, it eats bacteria and fungi and releases minerals that plants feed on. We need it. It will be very affected by climate change. So we try to understand what type of temperature change will affect it the most.