#SCIENCE FAIR HAMSTER MAZE TRIAL#

At the same time, if a food source is placed at the entrance and exit to the maze, they avoid dead ends in the maze and form a connection (as a single tube) between the food sources. If the Physarum polycephalum organism is chopped up and dropped into a labyrinth (a maze), they put themselves back together and start to move. You can watch the video below to get an idea of how this can work.

Nagakaki and colleagues in Japan have shown that Physarum polycephalum can find the shortest distance through a maze. One of the most interesting things about Physarum polycephalum is that it shows a quality that could be called primitive intelligence. This is probably the least understood of the five kingdoms of life the others being animals, plants, fungi, and bacteria. Slime molds, like Physarum polycephalum are part of the kingdom Protoctista. It can be fed rolled oats as it grows, and divided to a fresh plate when it has grown to cover the first surface. Physarum polycephalum is inexpensive to obtain and it can be easily cultured on a moist surface, such as a damp piece of filter paper or an agar plate (agar plates are easier to use because they stay moist). The organism is sometimes shipped as a sclerotium when purchased from scientific supply companies. It goes into a kind of dry, dormant state, called sclerotium from which it can revive itself if it becomes moist. Germination of the spores leads to the formation of a new plasmodium.ДЄ curious variation occurs when the plasmodium encounters conditions that are too severe for it to continue growing, but not severe enough to cause it to form sporangia. The sporangia produce spores that can be spread by the wind to new regions for the organism to grow. If the conditions that the organism finds itself in become challenging-for example, the ground becomes dry or food becomes scarce-the plasmodium will begin to shrink and form sporangia. In this plasmodial stage, Physarum polycephalum is a bright yellow glistening mass that can grow to more than a foot across. It consumes bacteria and decaying organic matter. In its growing stage, Physarum polycephalum looks like a giant amoeba that spreads out like a fan, enveloping and eating everything in its path. Physarum polycephalum growing in Olympic State Park. The students were surprised to see constant increasing in white noise and constant decreasing in kalimba.Figure 1. This was expected due to the condition having a much longer time span compared to the others. The stidentsвЂ™ data showed what was expected during the experiment there was almost always an increase from baseline to condition and then a decrease from condition to post-condition.

With this analysis, the students found their hypothesis was only half correct because white noise had the effect they believed guitar would. Of the 5 conditions, they found that white noise led to the greatest increase throughout all 3 behaviors while kalimba had the greatest decrease.

They compiled data of 5 conditions and their effects on 3 hamster behaviors: grooming, running, and digging. After every section, dividers within one-way would be lifted.

#SCIENCE FAIR HAMSTER MAZE TRIAL#

When running the trial, the students had decided to record the trials and split the trial into three different sections: baseline, condition, and post-condition. The students hoped to solve the problem of what instrument hamsters would react to the most. вЂњWe also think that the hamsters will be less active when listening to the kalimba as it is usually played at a slower tempo and has a higher pitch.вЂќ вЂњWe hypothesized the hamsters will be most active when listening to guitar as it is usually played at a higher tempo and has a lower pitch,вЂќ the girls wrote. The trials will be done with various instruments guiding the hamster to the finish half of the trials was done with the use of live music and the other half will be done with pre-recorded audio. They set up a maze for the hamsters to complete, and measure the time it takes for the hamster to complete the maze with no sounds to guide it. Within this project, the students observed the difference between how live music and pre-recorded music will impact the reaction time and the speed of a hamster.

Science fair hamster maze