Evolving Robotspeak

Loyalty, teamwork, cruel deception: welcome to robot evolution. Living things communicate all the time. They bark, they glow, they make a stink, they thwack the ground. How their communication evolved is the sort of big question that keeps lots of biologists busy for entire careers. One of the reasons it's so big is that there are many different things that organisms communicate. A frog may sing to attract mates. A plant may give off a chemical to attract parasitoid wasps to attack the bugs chewing its leaves. An ant may lay down pheromone trails to guide other ants to food. Bacteria emit chemical signals to each other so that they can build biofilms that line our lungs and guts. Communication may work all very well in these cases, but scientists also want to know how they evolved in the first place. Roughly speaking, their question goes something like this. Say ...