Darwin's Devices

<p>Neil Shubin, Professor, University of Chicago, and author of Your Inner Fish<br> Robots hold a key to our past, present, and future in John Long's fascinating Darwin's Devices. Telling the story of the exciting science at the boundary of biology and engineering, Long takes us on a tour of how science is done, how new ideas emerge, and how insights to ourselves can come from surprising places. George V. Lauder, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University John Long gives us an engagingly written and highly personal book that introduces his new approach to understanding the past using evolving robots. His unique perspective is sure to inspire others and broaden our views on how robots can inform our understanding of evolution. David Levy, author of Love and Sex with Robots John Long weaves a fascinating journey of scientific exploration which he describes with a highly infectious enthusiasm. Long's field is the creation of autonomous robots that can teach us about the evolution of animal behaviour--a complex subject which he analyzes and simplifies with great clarity. Darwin's Devices is a thoroughly stimulating read. Steven Vogel, James B. Duke Professor, Duke University<br> Whether in laboratory or kitchen, making something always improves your understanding of how it works. In this book, John Long traces his path toward better understanding the evolution of fish swimming by making robots that swim. His models quite literally embody the way the process of natural selection acts on performance in seeking food or not becoming food. It's a personal account of real-world science, complete with the bumps and bruises, the thickets of thorns. It's about the way we experimentalists go about things--not always pretty, but highly addictive in the doing and almost as seductive in the reading. Kirkus Reviews <br> Lively and intriguing. Booklist [A] lucidly written description of [Long's] research.... Using ingeniously engineered devices