artificial life

the simulation of any aspect of life, as through computers, robotics, or biochemistry.
Also called a-life, alife.

Origin:
1990–95

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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American Heritage
Science Dictionary
artificial life  
The simulation of biological phenomena through the use of computer models and robotics.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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00:10
Artificial life is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
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FOLDOC
Computing Dictionary

Artificial Life definition

algorithm, application
(a-life) The study of synthetic systems which behave like natural living systems in some way. Artificial Life complements the traditional biological sciences concerned with the analysis of living organisms by attempting to create lifelike behaviours within computers and other artificial media. Artificial Life can contribute to theoretical biology by modelling forms of life other than those which exist in nature. It has applications in environmental and financial modelling and network communications.
There are some interesting implementations of artificial life using strangely shaped blocks. A video, probably by the company Artificial Creatures who build insect-like robots in Cambridge, MA (USA), has several mechanical implementations of artificial life forms.
See also evolutionary computing, Life.
[Christopher G. Langton (Ed.), "Artificial Life", Proceedings Volume VI, Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity. Addison-Wesley, 1989].
Yahoo! (http://yahoo.com/Science/Artificial_Life/).
Santa Fe Institute (http://alife.santafe.edu/).
The Avida Group (http://krl.caltech.edu/avida/Avida.html).
(1995-02-21)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © Denis Howe 2010 http://foldoc.org
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Example sentences
It raises a lot of ethical concerns about creating and controlling artificial
  life.
From the smartest artificial brain to the first artificial life.
He is less the poet of artificial life, than of nature and the feelings.
The company's artificial life team is currently developing software that will
  grow by learning to write its own code.
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