New: There have been 2 surprises in the first 4 months of 2013. The first was a small, versatile c/7 spaceship named "Loafer" by Josh Ball. Unlike real life, the small, slow spaceships are the harder ones to build. This one fits in a 9x9 box. (See Spaceships-Orthogonal, or LoaferDuplicator.) And second, a small, quick stable glider reflector named "Snark" was found by Mike Playle. It fits an a 17x23 box and has a recovery time of only 43 ticks. This has been a holy grail for years, because although there are oscillators that reflect gliders, restricting the timing of the input gliders to the period of an oscillator is a hassle, and fails to enable periods that would otherwise be available. (See GliderReflectorLoop.) In updating this site for the first time in years, I have noticed that Java has become a real hassle in modern browsers. I apologize, but I simply do not have the time to update the website to take advantage of modern technologies (HTML5). If anyone out there would like to tackle that programming challenge, keep in mind that it doesn't count unless it can comfortably run the Breeder. I've done some googling, and have not found an HTML5 version of Life that lives up to the low standards set by this applet, although I know it is possible.