Virtual Organisms

Harmless artificial life forms are loose on the Internet; computer viruses and even robots are now able to evolve like their biological counterparts. British Telecom is sending small packets of software to go forth and multiply to cope with ever-increasing telephone traffic. Protein-based computers are on the agenda and a team in Japan is building an organic brain as clever as a kitten.
Artificial Life scientists are taking inanimate materials such as computer software and robots and making them behave just like living organisms. In the process they are discovering much about what drives evolution and just what it means to say that something is alive.