[Tyler]

A Robot Birthday for Darwin
     


Today is Charles Darwin's 200th birthday and this month also marks
the 150th anniversary of his book, On
the Origin of Species. As might be expected there are shindigs and events all over the world.
There's even a Darwin
Look-Alike contest at ASU and a Darwin Google
logo for the occasion. Other organizations and website are focusing
on how other fields of science were changed by Darwin's theory of
evolution. But not us, no siree. We're going to remind you how much
evolution has impacted robotics. While the direct application of
evolutionary algorithms is obvious, there are other less obvious
connections. For example, scientist
are about to release a rough draft of the Neanderthal genome, pieced
together from 38,000 year old bones found in Croatia. By
comparing the Neanderthal genes to those of chimpanzees and humans,
we'll learn a great deal about how our brains evolved. This in turn will
suggest new approaches for creating intelligent robots.
   

http://robots.net/article/2756.html