life inspired

"As the economy continues to chart its own tortuous, uncertain course, there seems to have been a fair amount of much-needed discussion on the kinds of skills new grads should possess." Blog post @ The Curious Wavefunction, Scientific American Blog Network,

Labels: complex systems, education

"Genome Biology speaks to a scientist involved in the discovery of the structure of DNA, and asks modern geneticists to highlight the key advances that have followed." News article @ The Scientist Magazine®. In-depth interview with Raymond Gosling @ Genome Biology.

Labels: dna, history, science

"[...]a brief history of the Evolving Cellular Automata (EvCA) project. In the EvCA project, a genetic algorithm was used to evolve cellular automata to perform certain (nontrivial) computational tasks, in an effort to gain more insight into the question: 'How does evolution produce sophisticated emergent computation in systems composed of simple components limited to local interactions?' Full article @ Complexity - Wiley Online Library

Labels: cellular automata, emergent computation, evolutionary algorithms

Another build-up on Golem on a build-up of Sim's paper: "This crazy looking thing is a simulated robot, made up of two different kinds of muscles along with bones and soft tissue for structure. This robot wasn't designed, it was evolved over a thousand virtual generations to move as fast, as far, and as functionally as possible." Full news article @ IEEE Spectrum. See the research from Jeff Clune.

Labels: evolution, evolutionary robots, morphohology, robots

"Laurent Keller's passions go far beyond ants as he taps genomics, robots, and other approaches to answer evolutionary questions." Full profile @ Science. . See also the article:

 D.P. Mersch, A.Crespi, and L. Keller [2013]. "Tracking Individuals Shows Spatial Fidelity Is a Key Regulator of Ant Social Organization". Science 1234316.[DOI:10.1126/science.1234316]

Labels: ants, collective intelligence, robots

"Collective behavior comes through the ability of neighboring objects to communicate and interact with each other. Villar et al. [...] produced three-dimensionally patterned, interconnected networks of lipid-bounded structures functionalized with transmembrane proteins, which allowed electrical communication along specific pathways." Full article @ Science

Labels: biomimetics, collective behavior, development, self-assembly

"Scientists in the US have built and tested robotic ants that they say behave just like a real ant colony. The robots do not resemble their insect counterparts; they are tiny cubes equipped with two watch motors to power the wheels that enable them to move. But their collective behaviour is remarkably ant-like." News @ BBC News

Labels: ants, bio-inspired computing, collective intelligence, computation, robots

"For the first time, synthetic biologists have created a genetic device that mimics one of the widgets on which all of modern electronics is based, the three-terminal transistor. Like standard electronic transistors, the new biological transistor is expected to work in many different biological circuit designs. Together with other advances in crafting genetic circuitry, that should make it easier for scientists to program cells to do everything from monitor pollutants and the progression of disease to turning on the output of medicines and biofuels." Full news article @ ScienceNOW

Labels: circuits, computation, computational biology, systems biology