Nuclear reactors could be built more efficiently using supercomputers to artificially 'evolve' designs, say engineers from the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. They have found they can speed up the extremely complex process of designing a reactor and generate novel designs from scratch by simulating natural selection.
Evolutionary algorithms, also known as genetic algorithms, are proving useful for solving complex problems, such as antenna design, and even creating inventions.
Researchers at Purdue University have used genetic algorithims to evolve optimal orbits for military and commercial satellites.
Scientists have built an "intelligent" computer that utilizes genetic programming techniques to invent and design products of its own.
In many spots in the United States and abroad, scientists have created computer programs that can change and refine their own software through successive generations; the process continues until the software does what needs to be done with no help whatsoever from the pesky humans who initiated it.
Researchers have released digital organisms in a computer environment to watch them "evolve" and record the results in a controlled experiment, the most elaborate use to date of the "artificial life" technique.
Genetic programming is the new frontier: A human creates the environment, and a computer hacks the code.