An interesting article about using robots to study evolution of communication in animals. Could be useful to design robots that learn how to talk to each other and create their own 'languages' . . .
http://www.current-biology.com/content/article/fulltext?uid=PIIS0960982207009281from the article:
"We found that communication readily evolves when colonies consist of genetically similar individuals and when selection acts at the colony level. We identified several distinct communication systems that differed in their efficiency. Once a given system of communication was well established, it constrained the evolution of more efficient communication systems. Under individual selection, the ability to produce visual signals resulted in the evolution of deceptive communication strategies in colonies of unrelated robots and a concomitant decrease in colony performance."
oh, and they got a movie, too (4.4mb):
http://www.current-biology.com/cgi/content/full/CURBIO/unassign/PIIS0960982207009281/mmc2.mov(the red robot at the bottom left is food, the one at the top right is poison)
