Markus Waibel writes,
"Biologists have long known the critical role of communication for the
evolution of social organisms. However, the study of communication is
very challenging, because experimental evolution with social animals is
difficult, and the development of communication skills is not reflected
in fossil evidence.
Researchers at the Laboratory of
Intelligent Systems at the EPFL
and at the UNIL in Lausanne,
Switzerland have now used
robots to identify key factors in the evolution of social organisms.
One of the most prominent evolutionary biologists, Lee Alan
Dugatkin, said in today's
ScienceNOW: "It has tremendous potential ... to address all sorts of
questions that haven't been answered yet."
Today's robots seem to have become complex enough to serve as artificial
animals - at least for some biologists. The birth of a new research
field?" For more on this topic see the
UK Telegraph, Huliq.com,
and EurekAlert!
Source: http://www.netchain.com
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