Plantlet The Blogging Platform of Department of Botany, University of Dhaka
Today we believe that being an exception is the new normal. We try our best to be an exception at something, to be an outlier. We don’t wanna be among the average people. We don’t wanna be mediocre. But mediocrity prevails in nature in every phenomenon. No matter how hard we try. If we excel at something we might be below average or close to the average at other things. If a business goes up, pretty sure it gonna be down again in near future. Nature can’t escape regression to the mean. Thus, mediocrity or average always prevails.
Regression to the Mean
In statistics, regression to the mean refers to the fact that, if a sample value is extreme(outlier), it is likely that in the near future(point) the value will be close to the mean or average. In business, if we look at the national economy, we’ll see some companies doing really good in some years. On the other hand, some companies go bankrupt. Thus, the total economy of a nation follows a regression to the mean. Again, if we note the rain rate of a decade.
Being Familiar with Slime Molds
Slime molds are charming little organisms. It has a slimy texture. Although, it had been classified as a member of the fungi kingdom in the past. Now it is not considered as a mold or fungus because it isn’t much relatable to fungus. It stays as a single cell throughout its lifetime. But, under adequate conditions, it may coalesce and form a unified collective entity called plasmodium. It looks bright yellow and big enough to be seen by the naked eye. In the wild, it mainly lives on damp leaves and rotten logs. In the laboratory it really likes oats.
Physarum polycephalum is one of many species of slime molds. You wouldn’t think there is much to say about the psychology of slime molds as they lack brain or anything that could be called similar to a nervous system. They definitely lack intelligence, thoughts or even feelings. Still a slime mold takes decisions like every living creature with a little bit of brain. In the slime mold’s limited world their decisions basically come down to
