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Chris Higgins
Evolving New Ways to Walk
by Chris Higgins - October 6, 2008 - 12:37 PM

Darwin@Home is a computer program created by Gerald de Jong to model evolution. While it aspires to be a general-purpose evolution platform, at the moment it does something pretty remarkable: it takes virtual creatures designed by humans and evolves them until they can walk.

Because Darwin@Home’s creatures are non-biological, they can have all kinds of strange body plans — they aren’t limited to the bodies we’re familiar with in Earth-based biology. In the video below, de Jong shows a series of bizarre virtual creatures (created by community members on their home computers) that have evolved walking strategies in the Darwin@Home software. Some are more elegant than others, but they’re all effective. It’s a weird-looking bunch, strangely reminiscent of deep-sea creatures. Have a look:

For more on Darwin@Home, check out this page of videos, the community site, or the project homepage. You can also download the software (it’s written in Java, so it runs on many platforms) and get started designing your own creatures!

(Via Kottke.org.)

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Comments (6)

  1. Reminds me of the from the His Dark Materials trilogy. Instead of being the usual vertebrates, they developed a diamond-framed skeleton that works together with wheel-like pods (from trees on their planet) to help them move. Interesting to see what nature might come up with, if things evolved differently.

    posted by nutmeag on 10-6-2008 at 1:24 pm

  2. Oops, I meant that this reminds me of the **Mulefa**.

    posted by nutmeag on 10-6-2008 at 1:28 pm

  3. For some reason, I seem to remember messing w/ a 2D version of this some years ago, or something similar… am I right or is my mind playing tricks on me?

    posted by Jason! on 10-6-2008 at 2:39 pm

  4. Nutmeag,

    I love that part of His Dark Materials.
    Such a creative and interesting concept.

    posted by meooow on 10-6-2008 at 7:18 pm

  5. Anyone interested in this who owns a Gamecube (or has an emulator) should check out Cubivore. You play an evolving creature who starts as a cube and grows pizza box-shaped body parts one at a time in various places depending on the species of cube being evolved.

    posted by El Tigre on 10-6-2008 at 11:16 pm

  6. Does anyone else think the narrator totally sounds like that old kids’ musician, Raffi?

    posted by Lulubell on 10-12-2008 at 2:35 am

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