How smart are amoebas?
It’s not clear how D. discoideum knows where it’s been. Amoebas move by extending protuberances known as pseudopods. One possibility, Li says, is that forming a pseudopod leaves a temporary “sear” in the cell’s structure, making it more likely that the next pseudopod will emerge from a different part of the organism’s cell wall and head in a different direction. She says that a similar mechanism might exist in a variety of other single-cell organisms and even in human cells such as neurons. Li presented the findings at the March meeting of the American Physical Society in Denver.–D.C.
