What would artificial life look like in the ammonia oceans of alien moons like Titan?
An extension of Bert Chan's Lenia that simulates organisms within a physically realistic liquid ammonia environment. Watch as cellular automata navigate through temperature gradients, hunt for nutrients, and avoid toxic waste—all emerging from simple rules interacting with a dynamic world.
Standard Lenia is "disembodied"—organisms exist in abstract mathematical space. This project gives them a physical world to live in.
- Liquid ammonia ocean (195K - 240K)
- Realistic thermodynamics (heat generation, diffusion, convection)
- Lower viscosity than water → faster, more fluid movements
- Nutrient depletion: Organisms consume resources
- Waste accumulation: Metabolism produces toxins
- Chemical signals: Pheromone-like communication
- Monod kinetics: Realistic growth limitation
- REST: High nutrients → grow and stay
- HUNT: Low nutrients → active foraging
- FLEE: High toxicity → escape behavior
- Emergent chemotaxis without explicit programming
- Organisms generate metabolic heat
- Creates temperature gradients → convection currents
- Organisms get physically transported by fluid motion
- Asymmetric shapes create directional thrust → "swimming"!
Exobiology: Saturn's moon Titan has vast liquid methane-ethane lakes. Jupiter's moons Europa and Enceladus may harbor subsurface ammonia oceans. What would life look like in these environments?
Artificial Life: Most CA models exist in abstract space. This project explores:
- Embodied cognition in cellular automata
- Environment-organism feedback loops
- Emergent adaptive behaviors from physical constraints
Inspiration: Combines ideas from:
- Lenia & Expanded Universe (Bert Chan)
- SmoothLife (Rafler, 2011)
- Active matter physics
- Bacterial chemotaxis
The Vision (The "Why"): This project stemmed from a curiosity for speculative exobiology. My objective was to explore an underexplored niche: the viability of cellular life in a liquid ammonia environment by adapting the existing Lenia simulation model.
My Role (The "How"): My primary role was that of project designer and lead. I defined the scientific objectives and directed an AI tool for the technical implementation. This process required a methodical approach:
- Strategic Piloting: Breaking down the complex problem into small, manageable steps.
- Quality Assurance (QA): Diagnosing the AI's errors using a "detective approach" (analyzing the "expected state" vs. the "observed state") to guide the tool toward a functional solution.
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/stickermustache-source/Lenia_Ammonia.git
cd Lenia_Ammonia
# Install dependencies
pip install numpy scipy scikit-image pillow
# Optional: GPU acceleration (recommended!)
pip install pyopencl reikna# Standard version
python3 Lenia_Ammonia.py
# With adaptive behaviors (recommended!)
python3 Lenia_Ammonia_V2_comportements.py#EVERYTHING IS ENABLED BY DEFAULT
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
Ctrl+E |
Toggle NH₃/H₂O environment parameters |
Shift+Ctrl+E |
Toggle temperature dynamics |
Shift+Ctrl+N |
Toggle nutrient consumption |
Shift+Ctrl+W |
Toggle waste production |
Shift+Ctrl+S |
Toggle chemical signals |
Shift+Ctrl+B |
Toggle adaptive behaviors (NEW!) |
| Key | View |
|---|---|
Tab |
Cycle through views |
| View 0 | Organisms (standard) |
| View 1 | Growth potential field |
| View 2 | Growth field |
| View 3 | Interaction kernel |
| View 4 | Object detection map |
| View 5 | Nutrients & Waste (green/red/purple) |
| View 6 | Behavioral States (rest/hunt/flee) (NEW!) |
Space- Pause/ResumeR- Random resetC- Clear world- See original Lenia documentation for more
AMMONIA_RING = {'r':0.75, 'w':0.6, 'b':1} # Wider kernel (lower viscosity)
AMMONIA_M = 0.08 # Lower optimal growth (cold environment)
AMMONIA_S = 0.008 # Narrower growth window
AMMONIA_T = 18 # Faster time scaling (higher mobility)
AMMONIA_R = DEF_R * 1.5 # Larger interaction radius# Temperature
AMBIENT_TEMP = 208.0 K # ~65K below water freezing
TEMP_RANGE = 195K - 240K # Liquid ammonia range
THERMAL_DIFFUSION = 0.35 # Heat spreads quickly
# Ecology
NUTRIENT_REGEN = 0.004 # Slow replenishment
WASTE_DECAY = 0.008 # Biological breakdown
CONVECTION_STRENGTH = 0.008 # Fluid motion intensityREST: nutrients > 0.7 → +20% growth
HUNT: nutrients < 0.3 → -10% growth (encourage movement)
FLEE: waste > 0.6 → -40% growth (escape pressure)┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Organisms consume nutrients │
│ ↓ │
│ Metabolism generates heat │
│ ↓ │
│ Heat creates temperature gradients │
│ ↓ │
│ Gradients drive convection currents │
│ ↓ │
│ Currents physically move organisms │
│ ↓ │
│ Organisms find new resources │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘
Organisms don't "know" they're hunting or fleeing—behaviors emerge from local rules:
- Nutrient sensing → Growth modulation
- Growth asymmetry → Directional bias
- Waste avoidance → Migration pressure
- Result: Chemotaxis without explicit pathfinding!
Lenia_Ammonia/
├── Lenia_Ammonia.py # Core simulation
├── Lenia_Ammonia_V2_comportements.py # With adaptive behaviors
├── COMPORTEMENTS_ADAPTATIFS_README.md # Behavior system docs
├── README.md # This file
└── demos/ # (TODO) Videos and GIFs
This is an open-source exploration! Contributions welcome:
- Bug reports and fixes
- New features (different environments, behaviors)
- Data analysis tools
- Visualization improvements
- Documentation enhancements
See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.
This project emerged from a creative exploration combining:
- Original concept and direction by the author
- Implementation developed through collaboration with Claude AI (Anthropic)
- Goal: Demonstrate what's possible in human-AI research partnerships
This is shared as open-source proof-of-concept to:
- Inspire the artificial life community
- Explore exobiological scenarios
- Advance cellular automata research
- Show new paradigms of human-AI collaboration
- Chan, B. W.-C. (2019). Lenia - Biology of Artificial Life. Complex Systems, 28(3).
- Chan, B. W.-C. (2020). Lenia and Expanded Universe. ALIFE 2020 Proceedings.
- Rafler, S. (2011). Generalization of Conway's "Game of Life" to a continuous domain - SmoothLife.
- Titan's hydrocarbon seas (Cassini mission)
- Europa & Enceladus subsurface oceans
- Ammonia as a potential biosolvent
- Original Lenia by Bert Chan
- Lenia Extended Universe
- SmoothLife
MIT License - See LICENSE.md file for details.
Attribution: This project builds upon Bert Chan's Lenia. Please cite both:
- This project for the environmental extensions
- Bert Chan's original Lenia for the CA framework
- Bert Chan for creating Lenia and inspiring this work
- Anthropic for Claude AI development tools
- The artificial life community for decades of fascinating research
- You for being curious about life in alien oceans! 🚀
- GitHub Issues: Bug reports and feature requests
- Discussions: Questions and ideas
- Reddit: r/alife, r/cellular_automata
- Twitter: Tag your demos with #LeniaAmmonia
⭐ Star this repo if you find it interesting!