Students at Vassar College are using robots with fins and tails to study evolution.
The robots look like bathtub toys as they bob along in a pool at the college lab. Their actions are dictated by microprocessors that help them act out predator-prey encounters from about 540 million years ago.
This is not like robot evolution in the “Terminator” movie sense of machines turning on their human masters. Instead, Vassar biology and cognitive science professor John Long and his students can make changes to the tails of robots to see which designs help avoid predators.
“We’re applying selection,” Long explains, “just like natural selection.”
The researchers believe the machines will catch on as technological advances allow robots to mimic animals far better than before.
The Associated Press
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
