A wealth of new generalised Herschel conduits have been discovered recently, even since the latest update on LifeNews. A member of the ConwayLife.com forums with the alias 'Guam' has successfully built a stable 90-degree reflector with a repeat time of 444 generations, marginally faster than its 466-tick predecessor.

The core of the reflector is a staged-recovery mechanism found in an earlier 487-tick reflector. The speed-up is therefore achieved by surrounding the core with a more efficient Herschel track (exploiting the new conduits), enabling the gliders to be delivered to the active site faster than before.

In other news, there is now a continuous version of the Game of Life exhibiting rich behaviour. It cannot be simulated in Golly due to its incompatibility with HashLife, although I believe the next release of Ready will incorporate it.