Between 2.4 and 0.6 Gy ago, our planet underwent several episodes of global glaciations, including the “Snowball Earth” case that ended 635 My ago. Causes of this last Snowball event presumably included a decreased greenhouse gas concentration and high continental albedo, both associated with the passage of the super-continent Rodinia at equatorial latitudes. When large continental masses are in …
Previous publications by the authors put forward the argument that Lifelike Cellular Automata (LCAs) can be treated as a bona fide example of livingness in and of themselves, not simply a toy analogue to biological life. Traits known to be indicative of biological life – biosignatures – were identified in informational form as particular outlier traits of the ruleset for the LCA known as Conway’s…
