Maker Faire Bay Area 2025

Can Cells Think?

Home: California

What kinds of things can think? Just humans? Just animals? We usually feel that thinking, cognition, learning, and anything "mental" requires a brain, but is that really true? Single cells can show a suprising range of complex behaviors that we normally associate with thought, including problem solving, goal-directed behavior, and simple forms of learning. We will present a hands-on demonstration of some of these behaviors, using giant single-celled organisms we collect from the pond, and testing their behaviors using home-brew apparatus based on Arduino that anyone can build at home. We hope to inspiure attendees to build their own experiments to test cell thought, and also to change the way you think about what it means to think!