Biomorphic Software

CowboyRobot writes "From the molecular structure of spiders' silk to the efficient use of energy by insects and fish, we can learn many things from Nature and apply them to our engineering tasks. One thing that nature is particularly good at is the development of dynamic, self-organizing systems. Ken Lodding is a software engineer at NASA and is currently developing 'swarm algorithms for groups of wind-driven, remote exploratory vehicles'. He has a six-page article at Queue on 'biologically inspired computing', how to develop 'algorithmic design concepts distilled from biological systems, or processes.'"

Comments

Great...

[xenostar]

All we need is wild packs of stray 'exploratory vehicles' rummaging through the garbage at night.

Please refrain from "World Wide Web" jokes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you.

The Biomorphic Goldfish Algorithm

[march]

10 SWIM AROUND TANK
20 PRINT "LOOK A ROCK!"
30 GOTO 10

Re:The Biomorphic Goldfish Algorithm

[sdjunky]

'Updated Visual Basic version
Public Sub Initialize
Dim GFish as Fish
Set GFish = Me
GFish.Type = FISH_TYPES_GOLDFISH
Tank.AddFish(GFish)
GFish.Action = FISH_ACTIONS_SWIM
GFish.InitTimedAction(FISH_ACTIONS_LOOK_ROCK,60000 )
GFish.Go()
End Sub

Public Sub Terminate
Dim GFish as Fish
Set GFish = Me
GFish.Rotate(0,1,0,180)
GFish.Float(FISH_BALLAST_UP)
GFish.Eyes = FISH_EYES_MILKY
GFish.Wait(60000)
Toilet.AddFish(GFish)
Toilet.Flush()
End Sub

Alien Engineers

[ReadbackMonkey]

I read things like this and can't help but thing about some alien engineers coming to earth, deciding that they don't have time to explore it properly, and plop down some solar powered "robots" to gather some data on the planet. A few millenia pass and some more alien engineers come by, having the same idea but being jerks, deciding to make "robots" that eat the solar powered "robots".

Jerks.

Re:Alien Engineers

[tgrigsby]

That's not so bad, really. The solar powered ones are still doing ok. The robots that eat the solar powered ones are flourishing as well. And there are even robots that eat those robots and so on. It's actually worked out alright, although the latest release of robots seems destined to eat every other robot and even themselves. But even those aren't the worst.

It's the robots that attempt to charge people a licensing fee for using Linux that really burn me up.

lastest hope for nerds

[prgrmr]

how to develop 'algorithmic design concepts distilled from biological systems, or processes.'

Does this mean we can expect the whole dating-and-mating process to be reduced to an algorythm? Does the average slashdotter now have reason to have hope to apsire to procreation?

Re:lastest hope for nerds

[tommeke100]

In this evolutionary process, slashdotters are unfortunately al gone after the first iteration.

Perceptrons?

[grunt107]

Didn't they clash with the autobots?

"Wind-driven exploratory vehicles"

[The_REAL_DZA]

My daughters and I experimented with these last weekend. After a birthday party. Many of them only ended up exploring the neighbors' trees. They must have found the trees interesting; they're still there. (I guess that's better then them deciding to explore the power lines, though...)

tried this...

[ethank]

and my worker threads went on strike.

8 bits!

[roofingfelt]

In the case of the human, the initial parent cell undergoes approximately 50 cell divisions, creating 1015 cells in your body, of which there are about 256 different types

256? Isn't that convenient!

Re:8 bits!

[pixas]

256? Isn't that convenient!

Yhea, but still, 640 types of cells ought to be enough for anyone...

Re:Anyone else creeped out by this?

[Alsee]

Nothing unusual there, he was just approximating to a nice round number. Just like there are about 1024 cents in ten dollars, about 64 minutes in an hour, and about 16 eggs in a carton.

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