Mistletoe

A plant that lives from the lifeforce of other plants. Not necessarily a symbiotic process.

Food chain.

Genetic competition and modelling.

Historical modelling.

Are Computers Living Beings? Are Computers Alive?

Research shows that "children may have difficulty understanding the boundaries between real and artificial life when engaged in simulation computer games".

See ISSUE: Children and Computer Technology
ARTICLE: The Impact of Home Computer Use on Children's Activities and Development

http://www.futureofchildren.org/information2827/information_show.htm?doc_id=69834

For example, one noted researcher, Sherry Turkle, found that some children may have difficulty understanding the boundaries between real and artificial life when engaged in simulation computer games.

Such confusion concerning what it means to be "alive" occurred among children of all ages. For example, one 10-year-old thought that the creatures in the computer game SimLife were "a little alive in the game," and that if you turned off the modem, they would go away, but if the modem stayed on, the creatures could "get out of your computer and go to America Online." Even one 15-year-old said that the whole point of SimLife was to show that you could "get things that are alive in the computer," and that just as "we get energy from the sun, the organisms in the computer get energy from the plug in the wall."
Turkle, S. Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995, pp. 88–95.
See note no. 77, Turkle, p. 169.
See note no. 77, Turkle; see also Richard, B. Digitaler grossanFgriff auf die seelen junger menschen (spiegel). Die sorge um ein virtuelles wesen (tamagotchi). Paper presented at the Self- Socialization, Child Culture, and Media Conference. Germany, University of Bielefeld, 1998.
See note no. 79, Richard.
The popularity of such simulation, or "virtual life," has continued with the advent of the very popular Furby, an electronic toy with fur, eyes, and ears; a 200-word vocabulary; and the ability to interact with its environment to a limited extent.

An Information Food Chain for Advanced Applications on the WWW