By watching evolution in progress, scientists reveal key developments in the evolution of complex life and put evolutionary theories to the test
Har inte hunnit läsa artikeln själv än men verkar intressant.
As Jerry Coyne has alerted us, there is a free evolutionary biology textbook available on Kindle — grab it while you can (if you don’t have a kindle, just put the free Kindle app on your computer).
(Source: freethoughtblogs.com)
Artikel: Darwin’s Robots
“Researchers simulated evolution with multiple generations of food-seeking robots in a new study of artificial swarm intelligence. ‘Under some conditions, sophisticated communication evolved,’ says one researcher. And in a more recent study, the swarms of bots didn’t just evolve cooperative strategies — they also evolved the ability to deceive. (‘Forget zombies,’ joked one commenter. ‘This is the real threat.’) ‘The study of artificial swarm intelligence provides insight into the nature of intelligence in general, and offers an interesting perspective on the nature of Darwinian selection, competition, and cooperation.’ And there’s also some cool video of the bots in action.”
Via Slashdot.
Engineers working for NASA know a lot about physics. They know exactly which characteristics make for a good communications antenna. But the process of designing an antenna so that it has the necessary properties is hard. Even though the engineers know what is required from the final antenna, they may not know how to design the antenna so that it satisfies those requirements. NASA’s Evolvable Systems Group has used evolutionary algorithms to successfully evolve antennas for use on satellites. These evolved antennas have irregular shapes with no obvious symmetry (one of these antennas is pictured below). It is unlikely that a human expert would have arrived at such an unconventional design. Despite this, when tested these antennas proved to be extremely well adapted to their purpose. (via When are Evolutionary Algorithms Useful?)
TED talks
TED.com. Mycket härlig sida med en stor samling av intressanta föreläsningar.
Axplock:
Liz Diller: Architecture is a special effects machine
Robert Full: How engineers learn from evolution
Cameron Sinclair: TED Prize wish: Open-source architecture to house the world
Wow. …”The researchers, at the Scripps Research Institute, created molecules that self-replicate and even evolve”…. Inte liv men en bit på rätt väg.
På samma sida (livescience) har de även artikeln Bionic Humans: Top 10 Technologies - spana!
