Slime: A Natural History by Susanne Wedlich – a ‘rich and strange’ book

Most people have a

Most people have a natural aversion to slime, said Simon Ings in
The Times^[1]. Yet according to the
German biologist Susanne Wedlich, this wondrous substance deserves
closer attention. Slime, she tells us, “holds the world together”.
For not only is it present just about everywhere in nature, but it
is the very “source of life”: had “stiffened water” not existed
early in our planet’s history, then cell development and
multiplication – the processes that led to our existence – would
never have been possible. 

Slime is stuffed with facts of the “surely that
can’t be real?” variety, said Mark Mason in the Daily Mail^[2]. Hagfish defend
themselves by jellying the water around them, causing even sharks
to gag. There’s a species of squid that “confuses predators by
shooting out several slimy replicas of itself”. And we learn, too,
of a snail that uses slime trails to select its partner – a useful
form of “advertisement-by-slime”, Wedlich notes, since such
creatures “rarely meet by chance, and speed-dating is out of the
question”.

Wedlich, who defines slime as “water caged in a
three-dimensional structure”, shows that our “prejudice” against it
is unfounded, said Steven Poole in The Daily
Telegraph^[3]. Without slime, we
wouldn’t be able to breathe, because our lungs use it to extract
oxygen from air. In our bodies and in nature it has multiple
functions: it acts as a lubricant, a glue and a barrier.

Slime, remarkably, can even think – or, “at least, slime moulds
have been shown to solve mazes, and in one famous experiment
connected a set of nodes in a way eerily similar to the actual
Tokyo subway map”. Both a “deft cultural history of slime” and an
“exegesis of its science”, this is a “rich and strange” – and
compelling – book.

Granta 336pp £20; The Week
Bookshop^[4] £15.99

The Week Bookshop

To order this title or any other book in print,
visit theweekbookshop.co.uk^[5], or speak to a
bookseller on 020-3176 3835. Opening times: Monday to Saturday
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