All articles tagged with #the blob
A prolonged marine heatwave nicknamed 'The Blob' warmed North Pacific waters by up to 5.5°C, wiping out about 4 million common murres across Alaska from 2015–2016—the largest known die-off of a single vertebrate species—causing widespread reproductive failure, disrupted food webs, and cascading impacts on fisheries and top predators; no recovery has been observed through 2025.
The iconic horror movie "The Blob" from 1958, starring Steve McQueen, bears resemblance to a real-life species called slime mold. Slime mold, a type of protist, engulfs bacteria and small organic molecules for food and forms a structure called a plasmodium. It moves by pulsating waves created by proteins found in animal muscle tissue. Slime mold can solve mazes and leaves an extracellular slime trail to navigate its surroundings. While slime molds can take up space, they are harmless to humans and typically grow to about five centimeters in the wild.