Messages

16

Biology / Synthia! SYNTHIA!

« on: September 06, 2014, 05:57:01 PM »

So I haven't seen too many threads around here about Synthia, or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoplasma_laboratorium

The only one I could find was from years back.

http://forum.darwinbots.com/index.php?topic=2262.0

The tone of that thread doesn't seem very enthusiastic overall.

Now though they've moved onto synthesizing the yeast genome.

http://www.nature.com/news/first-synthetic-yeast-chromosome-revealed-1.14941

http://syntheticyeast.org/

And trying to collect every genome they can from all the brewing companies historic yeast stores.

http://yeastmine.yeastgenome.org/yeastmine/begin.do

So I just wanted to start a discussion on Darwinbots here about synthetic biology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology

With all the recent advances I'd expect a lot more discussion around here as Darwinbots is basically a digital version of synthetic biology.

I for one am excited to see what they can learn from a large sampling of yeast genomes. Even though the tools are still relatively crude and costly, there still seems to be interesting things that can be done cheaply, and the toolset is always increasing in size. A lot of companies have failed though for apparently failing to keep their aspirations within the realm of possibility as complexity increases quickly in synthetic biology.

Anyway if you want to get deeper into synthetic biology these are some good sites to start.

http://diybio.org/
http://biopunk.org/
http://openwetware.org/wiki/Main_Page

Otherwise this is more or less an open discussion, to increase awareness, and hear peoples thoughts/criticisms on the field of synthetic biology.

17

Darwinbots3 / Re: Very simple sound idea

« on: September 06, 2014, 03:57:27 PM »

Also I want to add that sound as detection would basically be useless unless you also had varied visability on bots.

If a bot can camouflage itself visually, detecting it with sound would be useful, or if night turned off visual detection and left only sound detection.

Are you hoping to work this into a larger cooperation system? To be able to use sounds as group signals?


What I'm thinking is before you get fancy with the sound system you can think of what you want it to do instead, and treat it like shots (in DB2) that stop as they hit the sides, but branch out in a radial circle.

So

Noise 1 = mating call = detectable T/F
Noise 2 = cooperation call to same species = detectable T/F
Noise 3 = food found = detectable T/F
Noise 4 = bot locating ping = detectable T/F
Noise 5 = warning call = detectable T/F
etc.

Couple that with a passive listening mode that makes the bot go in the direction of detectable sounds. Which might bring up a problem, not sure if you play any submarine warfare games, but when an enemy sub pings you, you can only detect direction, not distance, until you have multiple location points. So that'd be something to consider in your sound simulation, do you want distance locating capabilities? Or only direction from detection? (one trick when pinged in a sub game is to just fire a torpedo straight down a ping, which is why I think bots could do the same)

It would need a form of species identification in it though. So X would have to know sounds came from X and not from Y, if you wanted them to cooperate, or not chase down the wrong species mating call.

If you treat sound like an expanding circle that ignore other bots and stop at the edges, you should be able to avoid having to come up with sound reflection, cancellation, just all the complexities that come in with sound/sound in water, and still have a functional "sound" simulation layer.

Though, I would love to see a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOFAR_channel

18

Internet Mode Commentary / Re: Who else is online?

« on: September 06, 2014, 03:23:04 PM »

I've been trying to keep mine up, but haven't been around for a few days.

Will try and keep it running now.

19

Internet Mode Commentary / Re: Who else is online?

« on: September 03, 2014, 03:29:31 PM »

No I think the IM console was fine when I checked. It's a popup as the simulation freezes.

A bot was causing 75's before, so I was trying to pin it down to a bot this time, and since I was on IM I was wondering if anyone else was getting the issue from a bot jumping in?

I will keep an eye out for your bots macadamia nuts, so far I've just got a ton of the bubbles bot on my screen.

20

Internet Mode Commentary / Re: Who else is online?

« on: September 03, 2014, 02:40:38 PM »

I was trying to run last night, but kept getting "Runtime/Error 75" actually I think I got a 5 and a 9 as well.

Restarts worked to solve this issue before, but aren't working now.

21

Off Topic / Re: Virgin Galactic in HD

« on: September 03, 2014, 06:51:33 AM »

It is very true, but after the initial development they really didn't expand too much towards engines.

Also for the soviet program, I think first ICBM, satellite, space station, and man in orbit is a pretty good accomplishment.

They also were first to physically touch the moon when they crashed a probe into it.

If you look at the moon landings, they were really playing catch-up, and had they been delayed, USSR would have made that first as well.

22

Off Topic / Re: Virgin Galactic in HD

« on: September 03, 2014, 12:14:52 AM »

I couldn't care much about the politics either, in the end it's usually criminals on each side trying to make cash while invoking the flag, and peoples love of staying comfortable. I just don't like it when people write off soviet designs for just being soviet.

The moon base thing is what Putin is saying he wants to do right now. Right at the kick-off of Crimea tensions he announced it.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/russia-plans-colonize-moon-permanent-lunar-base-report-article-1.1785673

It's kind of like the cold-war lite. Cold war with crippled ideologies and techno!

Now SpaceX just had a failure, and it will be interesting to see why. I'd guess the electronics, and guidance somehow screwed up on it, but I think engines still have a freeze up problem because they use the oxygen to cool the combustion chamber, to prevent the combustion from melting through the combustion vessel.

If a pump fails, or a tube gets clogged, you can have your engine melt.

Engine design hasn't moved that much either. Those soviet engine are #2 most efficient after that SpaceX Merlin engine, which is made from the soviet engines technology, which is from the 70s.

Good question though, I want to go look more into the causes of failures now, as I've just been searching it seems the Russians have had a ton lately, which is odd considering they had some solid designs.

I expect to see a few more SpaceX designs explode though, as anyone doing rocket research is bound to produce some impressive explosions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfUOJ1uYJUo

23

Internet Mode Commentary / Re: Who else is online?

« on: September 02, 2014, 04:30:08 PM »

Also only seems to happen with a fresh sim botsareus, if I load up an old one it doesn't happen.

It's a fresh sim, first click, occurrence.

24

Off Topic / Re: Virgin Galactic in HD

« on: September 02, 2014, 04:25:51 PM »

It's true, that 20 engine design was a little insane.

Do you know about the replacement engines that were never flown, the Nk-33s? Well at least never flown until the fall of the USSR, and that wonderful 90s sell off period.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLg1QUq5GQM

There's a good documentary on it.

I've actually been wondering if Putin won't go back and charge someone for selling these engines, but I'm pretty sure it's the same people running his space program now, so he may want to keep the engineers happy.

Elon Musks latest engine;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine_family)#Merlin_1D

Is said to use that same technology developed through the painful soviet test programs.

25

RANT / Re: Mis-Spelled words

« on: September 02, 2014, 04:18:38 PM »

Spellin < fappin

26

Internet Mode Commentary / Re: Who else is online?

« on: September 02, 2014, 04:17:03 PM »

DB completely froze for me when I double-clicked on a bot. Have to re-start.

Edit: This happens everytime I double-click on a bot. I'll send you a bug report later. Now I'll just avoid double-clicking cause I want to run in IM for awhile.

I'd actually mentioned this problem to Botsareus. It has happened to me once now on 2 different computers.

You click the bot when you just start IM and instead of the menu popping up with the data, it comes up blank, and the program freezes.

Now you can unfreeze it by clicking the X in the top right, then clicking cancel. At least that works for me It also doesn't seem to happen after I do that, it's a once per sim kind of bug.

I also had einstein take over my sim until lionfish showed up.

So that may be why you get a constant stream of lionfish, it's my bad, I like to leave the sim on for hours unattended and come back to view what kind of mess I've caused

27

Off Topic / Re: Virgin Galactic in HD

« on: September 02, 2014, 01:57:29 AM »

Kerbal is a fantastic game, and ya that could definitely not reach LEO looking like that.

Maybe if they scale it up to 10x the size, slap another booster on it.

Always another booster.

28

Off Topic / Re: Virgin Galactic in HD

« on: September 01, 2014, 06:05:20 PM »

Is it meant to be able to achieve a proper LEO?  Or does it just use a parabolic trajectory to get above the Karman line?

Ya as far as I know they're just using a parabolic trajectory to get to the Karman line. First flight hit the Karman line mark of 100km to get the X-Prize.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne#Development_and_winning_the_X_Prize

29

Simulation Emporium / Re: Ecosystem evolution

« on: September 01, 2014, 04:09:36 PM »

I switched to the new one about half an hour ago. So I should be in now.

I see some of your testin bots botsareus.

30

RANT / Re: Mis-Spelled words

« on: September 01, 2014, 03:25:43 PM »

Yup and I do that one SOOOOO often. the fingers just seem to get out of sinc with the brain.

*sync

Sorry I had to