Lipidia: An Artificial Chemistry of Self-Replicating Assemblies of Lipid-like Molecules

Lipidia is a new simulation system that is related to the “Lipid World” scenario for the origin of life. Lipidia allows for conducting experiments with a population of assemblies containing lipid-like molecules on a two dimensional grid. The dynamics of the assemblies is modelled using the Graded Autocatalysis Replication Domain (GARD) model. New experiments using a finite environment model with GARD were conducted with Lipidia. The experiments show that more self-replicating assembly species appear when using a model of finite environment than when using a model of infinite environment. In many species the number of individuals increases as well.