Physarum

The University of British Columbia (UBC) Botanical Garden publishes a Botany Photo of the Day. Today's photo is Physarum cinareum, a slime mould. Slime molds are important protists—single-cell eukaryotes. A related species Physarum polycephalum is studied in several labs and we are anxiously awaiting the results of the Physarum polycephalum Genome Project.

Back in the 1970's, Physarum was a leading candidate for the protist model organism but it fell out of favor 'cause it was too hard to work with. It's still studied in some labs because of its unusual RNA editing. Unlike all other species, Physarum can edit RNA by inserting new nucleotides and by substituting nucleotides.