Solving complex network problems using… fungus

Here is a part of a documentary on decay that aired on BBC.

The part I am talking about is at 1:03:45 and demonstrates a slime mold searching for its food, optimizing the network path between food sources and even creating some backup routes.

This is quite interesting considering that network resolution is a hard problem that requires quite a bit of processing.

P.s. The rest of the show is quite fascinating as well