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SILICON EVOLUTION. "As predicted, with each breeding cycle the offspring evolved slightly, nudging the population incrementally closer to the computer’s pre-programmed definition of the perfect individual. The candidates in question were not the stuff of blood, guts, and chromosomes that are normally associated with evolution, rather they were clumps of ones and zeros residing within a specialized computer chip. As these primitive bodies of data bumped together in their silicon logic cells." https://lnkd.in/e5p4fXs View in LinkedIn

FORCED EVOLUTION. "A computer carefully scrutinized every member of large and diverse set of candidates. Each was evaluated dispassionately, and assigned a numeric score according to a strict set of criteria. This machine’s task was to single out the best possible pairings from the group, then force the selected couples to mate so that it might extract the resulting offspring and repeat the process with the following generation." https://lnkd.in/e5p4fXs View in LinkedIn

DIGITAL AND CHEMICAL. "Secondly, blocks of data are stored at the beginning or end of the file, while the primary instructions occupy the middle of the file. This creates the same organization pattern observed in human chromosomes where repetitive sequences are grouped near the telomeres and centromeres." https://lnkd.in/de9z-Pn View in LinkedIn

CODE AND CHROMOSOMES. "Executable code shows the same large scale organization as chromosomes. Firstly, changing bias between the use of 1’s and 0’s creates the same distribution pattern as isochores alternating between A/T and G/C bias." https://lnkd.in/de9z-Pn View in LinkedIn

TANDEM REPEATS. "Once visualized, the similarities between executable code and the human genome are both striking and ubiquitous. Executable code makes extensive use of tandem repeats which show the same kinds of variation normally explained as insertions, deletions, and substitutions in biology." https://lnkd.in/de9z-Pn View in LinkedIn

EVOLUTION IS MESSY. "These evolutionary computer systems may almost appear to demonstrate a kind of sentience as they dispense graceful solutions to complex problems. But this apparent intelligence is an illusion caused by the fact that the overwhelming majority of design variations tested by the system— most of them appallingly unfit for the task— are never revealed." https://lnkd.in/e5p4fXs View in LinkedIn

SLOW FIXATION. "Selective sweeps occur when new alleles appear, by mutation or migration, and eventually become fixed in the population. These result in transient polymorphisms, although the process of fixation may be slow." https://lnkd.in/d3-W8NW View in LinkedIn

"NASA recently used this approach to produce the antenna for a spacegoing vessel, resulting in flamboyant-yet-effective shapes that vaguely resemble organic lifeforms— unlike anything an engineer would design without the benefit of mood-altering drugs. Scientists hope to eventually use genetic algorithms to improve complex devices such as motors and rockets, but progress is dependent upon the development of extremely accurate simulations." https://lnkd.in/e5p4fXs View in LinkedIn

FITNESS ALLELE UPRISING. "A selective sweep is the reduction or elimination of variation among the nucleotides in neighboring DNA of a mutation as the result of the recent fixation of a beneficial allele due to strong positive natural selection. A selective sweep can occur when a rare or previously non-existing allele that increases the fitness of the carrier relative to other members of the population increases rapidly in frequency due to natural selection." https://lnkd.in/dyTEN5R View in LinkedIn

MATING SUPERCOMPUTERS. "Modern supercomputers are also contributing to artificial evolution, applying their massive processing power to develop simulated prototypes. The initial designs are thoroughly tested within carefully crafted virtual environments, and the best candidates are used to breed successive batches until a satisfactory solution has evolved." https://lnkd.in/e5p4fXs View in LinkedIn