Brainless, single-celled organisms known as slime molds can successfully navigate complex mazes to find food and even recreate the layout of the Tokyo subway system with astonishing efficiency.

A closer look

Brainless, single-celled organisms known as slime molds can successfully navigate complex mazes to find food and even recreate the layout of the Tokyo subway system with astonishing efficiency. By expanding in all directions and then retracting from dead ends, these gelatinous blobs continuously optimize their cellular networks to find the shortest possible route between nutritional sources. It is absolutely humiliating for modern urban planners to realize that a literal puddle of bright yellow slime without a single neuron to its name is better at designing public transportation routes than humans with advanced engineering degrees. This gooey masterclass in logistical efficiency just proves that you do not need an expensive brain to figure out the fastest way to get to your next meal