Slime mold can survive the hot summer in a wine cellar.

 This is a story about a wine cellar which is used for raising slime mold.

 I have been raising slime mold on the agar plate poured in a shallow plastic container, repeatedly transplanted approximately every 5 days for about 2 years.

 However the room temperature sometimes exceeded 30 degrees Celsius in summer season, causing the slime mold to lose momentum and eventually to be dying. 

 I have read in a book that a famous young researcher of slime mold uses a wine cellar to keep slime mold in cool condition in hot summer before, so I bought a small wine cellar for the same reason as above.

 This wine cellar can control the interior temperature between 12℃ and 18 ℃.  So, I tried to set at 18 ℃, which seems to be a comfortable environment for the slime mold.  

 This is my slime mold (Physarum rigidum) that was transplanted on the agar plate 2 days ago and put in the above wine cellar. It is moving on the agar plate along the edge of container to look for something to eat. Talking about the agar plate, I boiled 4 g of agar powder in 500mL of water, then poured in 6 containers.


 Following figure shows the temperature inside the wine cellar compared with the room temperature. I think it perfectly fits for the slime mold. The temperature inside is controlled more accurately than I expected. Since slime mold should not be exposed to light, I have covered the transparent door with cardboard.  
 Incidentally, a wine cellar is used for various purposes during the summer, such as culturing a moss terrarium or raising a stag beetle larvae. I think it is a convenient tool to survive the hot summer for hobbyists raising living creatures.



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