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IN Darwin’s Devices John Long plunges into a world of blue marlin, robot tadpoles, and scientists chasing the former and building the latter. A biologist and cognitive scientist at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, Long has done both in his time, and begins the book with the obvious question: why would a biologist build robots?
The answer: robots are fast becoming an important lure in the biologist’s bait box. To demonstrate how, Long tours through evolutionary biology and biomechanics before homing in…
