05/15/2026
Join us for the LAMS May 2026 meeting, featuring Marcus Roper, Prof. of Math and Computational Medicine at UCLA, with his presentation:
“Hyphal Highways and Intelligent Molds”
Monday May 18, 2026
Sparr Heights Community Center
Glendale, CA
Mushroom ID — 6:30 PM
Main Talk — 7:30 PM
This is the last public meeting of the season, which will start again in October!
Bring in any specimens (or photos of specimens) for identification and discussion.
• This event is free and open to the public!
• Talk will be livestreamed on our YouTube (link in bio) starting around 7:30 PM on the day.
Program: Hyphal Highways and Intelligent Molds
Fungi and slime molds come from different kingdoms of life, but are found in similar niches, and build networks of cells that look similar and fulfill similar purposes — the hydraulic transport of nutrients and cellular material. Although typically hidden in rotting woods, soil, or in host organisms, we now know that the networks solve the same problems that plague human-built transportation networks, such as roads or data networks, including balancing loads, rerouting traffic in response to damage and handling congestion. I will share some stories about how fungal and slime mold networks are built including: 1. How flow on hyphal highways enable fungi to become chimera that blend genetically different parts, and 2. How ‘brainless’ slime molds respond intelligently to their changing environments.
Marcus Roper is a Professor of Mathematics and Computational Medicine at UCLA. He has a special interest in biological transportation networks, including blood vessels, fungi and slime molds. His work fuses mathematical modeling with video-making, and a goal of this talk is to show you how his pathway to making discoveries involves both looking at nature using microscopes and computer vision and also recreating it using math and computer simulations.
