The bugs are really small pieces of computer code, given instructions to reproduce or get their equivalent of food or energy by moving through 'logic gates' and performing mathematical tasks. In a test of Darwin's principle of natural selection, those that succeed are rewarded with more computer processing time, says Michigan State University research associate Charles Ofria, who helped develop the software called Avida. The unexpected result of the study was that the 'bugs' evolved to become extremely stable, as shown in an animation released Tuesday. The images show various color-coded strains, which some of the researchers call 'life,' reproducing, competing, dying off or thriving. Any little thing they can take advantage of, they do.
Life evolves in such unexpected ways, it happens.
Now the Avida software has self-generated life, or a computer code, that is highly impervious to mutations. The research was published in latest issue of Nature. Microsoft impressed with research Microsoft learned of Adami's work a few years back and was impressed. Dennis Adler, now on leave from his university relations job with Microsoft was intrigued by the initial results. If you went in and did that with Excel, the results wouldn't be good.