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Several weeks ago MSNBC published an article Origami boosts solar panel productivity, which discusses the design of 3D solar panels. A genetic algorithm is used in the discussed work to find the optimal shape of the 3D solar panels. From the original article:

Assuming a roughly 1,075-square-foot area (100 square meters), flat [...]

Pier Luca Lanzi just posted a few video highlights from the Simulated Car Racing Competition at CEC-2009. The winner of the competition was Thies Lonneker and Martin Butz. Congratulations!
Here’s one of the posted videos:

See also Pier Luca’s post at IlliGAL Blogging.

Bob MacCallum has rolled out his new evolutionary music website — using genetic programming and human fitness assessment — just in time for Darwin’s 200th birthday. The interface still isn’t 100% smooth (on my mac at least), but it works and it produces some interesting output. Check it out at http://evolectronica.com.

Today’s New York Times features an article describing a new discovery about the element boron, made in part by evolutionary computing. Full details of the discovery are provided in a January 29, 2009 letter in Nature (subscription required). They (Oganov et al.) used a special purpose evolutionary algorithm called USPEX that is not really described in the Nature piece, but it is described elsewhere including here.