I am amazed by the current pace of the research into formalizing and simulating biology. Here is another fresh example, a borg-like jellyfish.
So closely does the medusoid mimic the movement of the real organism that it even creates vortices in the water like the ones living jellyfish create to waft food into their mouths.
The medusoid took four years to build, and the scientists have already begun working on another more complex artificial marine creature. "The jellyfish is really simple, and we're going to do one that's a bit harder, and then a bit harder still, and so on, with our long-term goal to build a heart," said Parker.
"A Whole-Cell Computational Model Predicts Phenotype from Genotype" by Jonathan Karr et al.
This paper appeared a few days ago in Cell, and describes a computational simulation of the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium, conducted at this lab. The paper is behind a paywall, but is blogged about here. The simulation software is freely available from the project web site.
From the abstract: "Here, we present a ‘‘whole-cell’’ model of the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium, a human urogenital parasite whose genome contains 525 genes. Our model attempts to: (1) describe the life cycle of a single cell from the level of individual molecules and their interactions; (2) account for the specific function of every annotated gene product; and (3) accurately predict a wide range of observable cellular behaviors."
According to an editorial commentary in the same issue, this is the first simulation of a complete free-living microbe.