The Depth sea

The sea is one of the great unexplored parts of this planet. In its depths lie great mysteries that will shake the face of our science and civilisation. Some of these have been discovered recently, lifeforms that inhabit hot volcanic vents, creatures with their own light sources, strange structures unlike any seen on the surface. This is a real laboratory of life, as different from the surface as anything that we could imagine on a distant planet. If we can find such novelty here, right under our nose, then just think on the possibilities for life in forms quite alien to those based upon our own DNA.
This possibility is investigated in the field of Artificial Life, here we study processes that resemble those common to the life we know, yet implemented in very alien ways. Our creatures live in silicon, their bodies are made up of patterns of light inhabiting a computer core, they evolve in ways similar to natural life, mutating, having sexual relations, competing for space and time. In this world of tomorrow we see, speeded up a thousand fold, natural selection in action coupled with a new phenomenon, that of self-organization. These systems evolve themselves to an edge of chaos state, the operating parameter that allows them to adapt most efficiently to changes in their environment. This is exactly the same state that we see in natural and human systems, leading many to claim that we have now succeeded in playing God, we have created life itself...