Studying the Emergence of Multicellularity with Cartesian Genetic Programming in Artificial Life.
J.A. Rothermich, Julian Francis Miller · 2002
A study is made to learn how multicellular organisms might have emerged from singlecelled organisms. An understanding of this phenomenon might provide a better understanding of natural and man-made multicellular systems. The experiment performed is an Artificial Life simulation that uses Cartesian Genetic Programming to evolve the behaviors of individual cells. Cells have the ability to sense chemicals around them, signal, divide, and move towards or away from chemicals. Interesting group behavior emerged from the simple instruction sets used by the cells.