Here’s a fascinating two-parter: part one is an impressive demonstration of order arising out of simple mechanisms and a little random shaking, interacting with the laws of physics to give rise to order, replication and selection.

Things really take off in part two.

The lessons here: (1) replication is a simple trick when the conditions are right (2) human perception and expectations are easily fooled and impressed (3) DNA and self-replicating, intent-free machines like it are probably common.

Our eyebrows go up, while the universe shrugs and says, “meh, that’s just how it works around here.”