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Welcome
to evolutionary research, 
one of the most fascinating adventures of our time. This website is powered by evolutionary-research, an evolutionary bioinformatics non-profit initiative
with the mission to investigate the amazing effects of evolutionary forces. While this incredible task had long been the pursuit of a few professional biologists, evolutionary-research aimes at taking it to the public: We all need
to collaborate to really understand the evolution of the biosphere. But how?
Has everybody to become an evolutionary biologist? No. While scientists
obviously remain key to the adventure on the long run, the general public can contribute something crucial experts are usually short of
and that is computing power! Since April 2001 evolution@home has started in a semi-automated prototype. It is the first public global distributed computing project targeting
evolutionary questions by distributing the work to many PCs like the SETI@home and other similar projects
. A central server distributes the work to those computers who want to participate in
their idle time. So, while you are sleeping at night, your computer will simulate the effects of various evolutionary factors
- on the survival of populations of endangered species and
- on the evolution of novel functional adaptations.
Since there are innumerable different specific questions in evolutionary biology, it is impossible to write one piece of software that will help answering
them all, if it computes long enough. Thus specific questions will be coded into client-software that you will be able to download to participate in the
answering of that specific question. The results calculated on your computer will be sent back over the internet to be collected by the central server. From time to time results are analyzed and will be published.
The first Simulator in this series targets a question related to the extinction of endangered species: As most people know, deleterious mutations happen
more often than advantageous ones. Few people know however, that - if such mutations have only mild effects - they can drive a population to extinction.
This process is known from theoretical population genetics as Muller's ratchet. It can endanger asexual populations, if certain mutation rates are
too high in those populations. To elucidate this possible genetic reason for extinctions, the first simulator will model populations of various sizes where
mutations of various effects can happen. The simulations will help check analytical approximations about Muller's ratchet and answer the question under what circumstances this process does play a role in nature. Other
simulators will follow, as the application framework being developed (EEPSLION) is built to facilitate fast implementation of various models from evolutionary biology and ecology. What you can do now You can participate now. As new releases of the first public simulator are being developed as well as new simulators, you may
register to recieve an
email once something new is ready for download. You may also write about evolution@home to help introduce other people to the adventure.
So, whatever you do, be part of the adventure. What you will find on this site For a more detailled introduction got to start. You may go on with the most frequently asked questions (FAQ). If you want to support evolutionary-research, then help us. Simulators
are those computerprograms that can simulate a specific evolutionary model on your computer. They contact a central server that
provides them with the next most important scientific question (parameter combination) that needs to be solved by the next free simulator available. The
amount of processor-time and other statistics of this supercomputing project are reported in the high scores. The scientific
background that motivated the model can be seen as soon as a new simulator is released. The scientific results calculated by the simulators are presented as their analysis becomes available. These results are also presented in a simple non-technical language to facilitate discussion in a wider audience. If you are looking for
some news of the past or some other helpful resource, consult the archive
. If you look for a site-map, then search
. And finally, have fun while you discover evolutionary-research. |
