"The very idea of a gene pool has no meaning if there is no sex. 'Gene Pool' is a persuasive metaphor because the genes of a sexual population are being continually mixed and diffused, as if in a liquid. Bring in the time dimension, and the pool becomes a river, flowing through geological time..." -Richard Dawkins, from The Ancestor's Tale , page 432

Gene Pool is an artificial life simulation in which populations of physics-based organisms evolve swimming capabilities over time. These organisms are called "swimbots". You can set mate preference criteria and thus influence what the swimbots consider as attractive qualities in potential mates. The most attractive swimbots get chosen most often and so their genetic building blocks propogate to future generations. Eventually, swimbots get better at pursuing each other, competing for food, and becoming babes to other swimbots. Local gene pools emerge which compete for sex and food (for energy to have more sex). Eventually a dominant sub-population takes over. And sometimes, everyone just dies (but you can help keep them alive, by moving food bits and swimbots around, and constraining the migration of competing populations by using the "Great Wall")

Click HERE to test Beta version 6 (includes Mac version!) You can also download the older versions... GenePool 4.1...... GenePool 4...... GenePool 3...... GenePool 2...... GenePool 1...... GenePool 0.3 (WARNING: pool files from versions lower than 4 are not compatible with later versions) Download dna files here and see what Gene Pool fans all over the world have been evolving.

Gene Pool is best appreciated as a virtual Darwinian aquarium in which you initiate a primordial soup, and then occasionally check up on what Virtual Mother Nature is up to - about every fifteen minutes (or every few days, if you are interested in long-term evolutionary experiments!)

Speaking of experiments, version 5 now includes "Tweak Ecology", which means that you can change food and energy settings. Question: what happens when swimbots give (ALL) of their energy to their offspring when they mate? Here's a hint: They die. But what does this mean for evolution in the long term? "Tweak Ecology" lets you find out.

In Gene Pool, the strange and unexpected strategies for swimming (and being sexually attractive) that emerge can sometimes be amusing, and a bit reminiscent of that special form of Creativity that Mother Nature has been using for billions of years, known as Darwinian Evolution.

If you like Gene Pool, you'll probably dig...

A Review of Gene Pool by TechnoZeus... http://www.geocities.com/technozeus/gp.html GenePool evolved from within... (c) 2008 by JJ Ventrella