The Game of Life is a cellular automaton that replicates the survival and death of populations based on predefined rules. John Conway, a mathematician at Princeton University, released the Game of Life in 1970. The Game of Life is an unpredictable simulation. When a portion of a board setup achieves symmetry the symmetry is maintained unless the formation merges with another. The symmetry can increase and become very complicated.
The game operates on a two dimensional grid and cells live or die based on the states of their neighbors. Dead cells are black and live cells are green and neighbors are defined as adjacent cells including diagonals. The game operates under two sets of rules that determine which cells live and die on the next cycle. Under the first set of rules a live cell with two or three living neighbors stays alive. If a live cell has four or more neighbors that are alive it dies of overcrowding. A live cell with one or less living neighbors also dies of loneliness. Dead cells with exactly three live neighbors become alive. The second set of rules changes all of the numbers in the first set to twos. So if a living cell has two living neighbors it dies, and a dead cell with two living neighbors dies. All cell updates occur at once and are considered a generation or cycle.
This version of the game includes a feature called infection. The infection starts randomly in one of the live cells and is identified as red. By default the infection is introduced on the thousandth iteration but the user can change that value when the program starts, or remove the infection completely. In the next cycle it spreads to all of its live neighbors and the infected cell dies. If the infected cell did not have any living neighbors ...
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...d are still spreading indefinitely. When the infection is added it does not spread very far and dies out. Then the populations continue spreading indefinitely.
The Game of Life is a population simulation implemented with cellular automaton. The cells live, die, or become infected depending on their number of neighbors that are living, dead or infected. In this version of the game two sets of rules are used. The first set causes the populations to die or become stable more easily and the second set allows the populations to grow and spread indefinitely.
Works Cited
"Conway's Life." Conways Life RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.
Gardner, Martin. "MATHEMATICAL GAMESThe Fantastic Combinations of John Conway's New Solitaire Game "life"" Scientific American 223.4 (1970): 120-23. Conway's Game of Life: Scientific American, October 1970. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.
The first idea, the process of evolution drives the diversity and unity of life, is presented by the evolution of HeLa cells. The cells need to adapt to their ecological niche. This is done when a cells divides, genetic mutations occur, and the ones that make the cells better adapted to their ecological niche, or their petri dish, are preserved by natural selection. “When Henrietta Lacks’ cells first became cancerous, they also acquired the ability to survive indefinitely in a culture medium; that massive genetic transformation made them substantially different from ordinary human cells, and after four decades of evolution they have become more different still. Different strains of HeLa cells, analogous to different races of human beings, have even developed in some of the geographically separated lines.” (discovermagazine.com). The second idea, biological systems utilize free energy and molecular building blocks to grow, to reproduce, and to maintain dynamic homeostasis, is represented when the cells reproduce. HeLa cells are considered to be immortal meaning that they are kept alive and are able grown indefinitely. This tells us that the cells are not at homeostasis because their “births” exceed their “deaths”. The reason behind this and the type of energy the cells use is not entirely known, which makes it difficult to to completely relate the HeLa cells to the second big idea of AP Biology. The
An emerging diseases class must also anticipate what the potential issues are that may halt the eradication process. An example of a problem is when Foege had to figure out what to do when faced with a low supply of the vaccine. There were two main choices, try and target the places where the outbreak occurred, or dilute the vaccine and give it to everyone. Each had their own downside however. If Foege and his team targeted the wrong places then the virus would still spread and inevitably infect everyone in the area and wreak havoc on the region since all of the vaccine would be gone. The other option had an equally catastrophic down side. If the vaccine was too diluted and did not take then the virus could become active and those inoculated would most likely become infected with vaccine-borne smallpox. To make a long story short, the first option was chosen and actually lead to the “Surveillance and Containment” method. This method entailed surveying the population for anyone who could have the outbreak and then making sure to contain any potential outbreak from occurring. This idea of identifying the problems that are being faced and weighing the options against each other is an important concept to understand in an emerging diseases class. In an eradication effort Foege lets us know
The book draws its name from the first essay, "The Lives of a Cell," in which Thomas offers his observations on ecology and the role of cellular activity. He writes that the "uniformity of the earth's life, more astonishing then its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from some single cell, fertilized in a bolt of lightning as the earth cooled" (3).
This virus searches for a new vulnerable host in order to survive and carry the disease to the next victim. The critical aspect around the spread of a virus is how drastically the reproduction process occurs. Without being controlled, the contamination throughout any species causes the spread to take place in a toxic way, “On day one, there were two people. And then, four, and then, sixteen. In three months, it’s a billion.
Kopp, Elizabeth, and Medzhitov, Ruslan. “A Plague on Host Defense.” The Journal of Experimental Medicine. .
migration throughout all of Europe and even America (Forsyth). Efforts to contain both diseases were entirely unsuccessful. AIDS is now an international problem as was
Disease and parasitism play a pervasive role in all life. Many of these diseases start with microparasites, which are characterized by their ability to reproduce directly within an individual host. They are also characterized by their small size, short duration of infection, and the production of an immune response in infected and recovered individuals. Microparasites which damage hosts in the course of their association are recognized as pathogens. The level of the interaction and the extent of the resultant damage depends on both the virulence of the pathogen, as well as the host defenses. If the pathogen can overcome the host defenses, the host will be damaged and may not survive. If on the other hand the host defenses overcome the pathogen, the microparasite may fail to establish itself within the host and die.
The game's rules were designed by Catherine L. Coghlan and Denise W. Huggin. The purpose of the game is to change a familiar game like Monopoly that most students know into a teaching tool to teach students how real society functions. (*See the end of the post for links to their study and directions for playing the game.*)
been previously touched by an infected person, will transmit the disease to the healthy person who
After reading the novel Ender’s Game there are many surprises and themes. The main theme is life is a game; Bonzo, Ender and, Peter best prove that with many reasons like: cheating, patience, and enemies. Those supporting points mentioned above contribute to the theme of life is a game because it deals with traits of a game. Some games take patience, some you fight enemies and when the game is difficult people result in cheating.
...ving things carry viruses in their cells. Even fungi and bacteria and inhabited by viruses and are occasionally destroyed by them. A virus makes copies of itself in a cell until eventually the cell gets pigged with virus and pops and the viruses spill out of the broken cell. If enough cells are destroyed, such as they do in the case of Ebola, the host dies. A virus does not "want" to kill its host. That is not in the best interest of the virus, because then the virus may also die, unless it can jump fast enough out of the dying host into a new host.
It may be difficult to understand how the Odyssey, a 2,700 year old epic poem about gods and monsters, could ever symbolize life today. The Odyssey does, however, parallel to a journey of life because of the decisions made by Odysseus and decisions I will make as well as the trials he endured and the challenges I will face. Some of the obstacles I will endure in the future, including high school and college, may not be as serious as the monsters Odysseus had to face, nevertheless, they are still everyday situations that I must learn from.
games, seems to be one of the most durable features of game theory. He thinks
Geoffrey Garnet and Edward C. Holmes. “The Ecology of Emerging Infectious Disease.” Bioscience. Vol. 46 Issue 2 (1996).
The abstract idea of life cannot be explained by such simple ideas as being animated, breathing, or speaking. Ordinary machines in this century can perform all of these basic functions. The quandary with defining death is not as abstract and elusive as that of life. The problem of defining life and death has plagued philosophers and the religious bodies for thousands of years for one reason; each philosophy or religion has tried to define the meaning of life and death from only their certain perspective. The seemingly appropriate approach to this problem would be to understand the ideas presented in various philosophies and religions and through this knowledge create a new definition for each idea of life and death. The movie Blade Runner has taken this exact approach in its attempt to finally define life and death in a logical and un-spiritual manner. By taking the position that death is a concrete idea that can be explained, Blade Runner accomplishes the task of interpreting the idea of life in terms death. Through this approach, the meaning of life is redefined to accommodate for the existence of the replicants. Also, as a result of this novel notion of life, it is apparent that humans and replicants never actually live, even though they are alive.