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Digital Darwin
An anonymous reader writes "Using genetic algorithms to breed strings of computer code graphically, this week's Nature magazine describes results from Caltech and Michigan State. Their program is Avida. While they mainly mimic mutation, not genetic cross-over [or inheritance (thus wiping away much memory of initial conditions)], their simulations show how a short-term backward step in survival strategies can generate innovative advances. It is not unlike running a maze which necessarily involves testing alot of dead-ends, and thus shares the graphical look of Conway's classic Game of Life." Here's a National Geographic story about this as well, or see their press release.
Especially: Evolution, Ecology and Optimization of Digital Organisms and Zen and the Art of Creating Life
2)The Santa Fe Institute
3)Kevin Kelly's Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World
Yeah, it was Scientific American.
The 'appendix' was a blind capactitor in the circuit that looked like this:
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O -- connected to the rest of the circuit here
. = filler to get by the white-space filter
"We discover a new virus all the time, but one thing remains the same, it's still a virus."
Except this is a purely linguistic definition, not corresponding to anything in nature, and explicitely shows the flaw in the majority of creationist thinking: The name *is* the thing. "Kind" is a completely useless word. I've seen it equated to "species", and then I've seen a creatist backed so far into a corner that there was a "bacteria kind", "plant kind", and "fungus kind". The only common definition for "kind" is that humans must occupy an excusive niche, it seems.
There is more diversity in viruses than there is between a human and any other mammal, yet they're all the same "kind" to because it's convenient and removed from daily experience.
It's based on Karl Sims work, which I saw presented about 10 years ago at SIGGRAPH. His page is at http://www.genarts.com/karl/
I tried implementing something in LISP then C based on Sims' work way back but got stuck; I'm glad evolvo has emerged so I can actually play with it.
For the record, I'm one of Dr. Adami's grad students in (The Digital Life Lab) at Caltech. Most of the programming is done at our sister lab in Michigan.
We recently released Avida version 2.0, with a new GUI and complete with god mode where you can inspect and edit the genome of any organism at any point.
We encourage you to play with Avida yourself. You can get information and a Mac OS X binary at:
Avida's Hompeage. Older versions for linux and windows are available there as well.
The intrepid can build the current version for OS X or Linux from source, please see Avida's Sourceforge Project. If you want the nice GUI, you'll need QT.
Other information about Avida, our lab's research, and artificial life in general can be found at:
The Digital Life Lab Homepage
Our sister lab at MSU, run by Professors Charles Ofria and Richard Lenski.
The Int'l Society For Artificial Life
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
A couple of years ago, Richard Formato (WW1RF) released Yagi Genetic Optimizer, the third edition of his software for using genetic algorithms for antenna design. This stuff does really work, and is useful. It's freeware, but for ms-dos, here