FOR generations, the Avidians have been cloning themselves quietly in a box. They’re not perfect, but most of their mutations go unnoticed. Then something remarkable happens. One steps forward, and ...

In the admittedly futuristic discipline of simulated artificial life form, or animat, research, BabyX is perhaps the most ambitious project to date. Its creator, Mark Sagar, has chosen no less a goal ...

A living organism is made from components that aren’t themselves living. This simple statement has profound implications. For one, it means that there is no mystical force that animates us and other ...

Life begins with a single cell. It grows, copies its DNA, divides and repeats the cycle billions of times — a process that has powered every living organism on Earth for billions of years. Scientists ...