Michael Levin discusses how bioelectric networks coordinate cell behavior to grow organs, regenerate limbs, and create novel biological structures.
DNA isn't the only builder in the biological world -- there's also a mysterious bioelectric layer directing cells to work together to grow organs, systems and bodies, says biologist Michael Levin. Sharing unforgettable and groundbreaking footage of two-headed worms, he introduces us to xenobots -- the world's first living robots, created in his lab by cracking the electrical code of cells -- and discusses what this discovery may mean for the future of medicine, the environment and even life itself. (This conversation, hosted by TED's Chris Anderson, was recorded June 2020.)
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What people say. Highly recommended as a mind-blowing introduction to bioelectricity and how cells communicate non-chemically to coordinate development and regeneration.
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On “Amputated fingertips sometimes grow back (2013)”
Regarding how the body "knows" how to form missing pieces, might be worth checking out Michael Levin's research regarding bio-electricity. Most interesting finding to me is that once modified, the animal bodies continue to produce different parts as if there is some electrical "memory" in the cells. Here is an overview video: link to this video , though there are much longer lectures and papers which I would recommend if you are interested.
On “Electric fields, not individual neurons, may hold information in memory: study”
Electric potential across other cells and also single-cell organisms is well known and not new. This is new though (and revolutionary): link to this video Regarding consciousness, I don't get why people who submit to consciousness being everywhere in the universe have problem with simply calling it the universe. It seems to make discussions much more productive.
One interesting research group tackling this question is ex-computer engineer, currently biologist Prof. Micahel Levine's group. They built xenobots (biological robots) from frog cells which are not evolutionarily programmed to do tasks which they accomplished. Their research in part deals with emergence of agency at multi-cellular level. And they want to get at the fundamental signatures of what makes some collection of agents into a new single agent at an higher level. Checkout, link to this video And a new research paper (inhavent had the time to read yet) on this question of how coherent higher order agents emerge from underlying sub-agents. link
…formation with each other via gap junctions, etc. That electrical communication does control how cells behave. If you have 20 minutes to watch this ted talk interview I highly recommend it. My mind was blown. Your DNA determines the hardware, but there's a lot of non chemical communication that goes on between cells that determine how they behave. link to this video Once you realize that cells can effectively communicate with each other via voltage, things like whats described about electrical bandages become less surprising.…
On “Language models can explain neurons in language models”
Maybe the neurons are the hardware layer. The software is represented by the electronic activity. There is a good video link to this video about this topic.
There's a fascinating (in my opinion) TED talk about this featuring the same Biologist, with examples of regenerative experiments performed using Flatworms: link to this video
More about Michael Levin: What Bodies Think About: Bioelectric Computation Outside the Nervous System – link Why don’t (today’s) Robots get Cancer? – link The electrical blueprints that orchestrate life – link to this video And a tweet about the article – link
On “Electric fields, not individual neurons, may hold information in memory: study”
"Something electrical floating around your cells" isn't just the mind either, it's also how the organism coordinates its development: link to this video
Extropians hack reality versus a purpose built man made machine: link to this video Ideas like designer drugs and therapy to embed experience and knowledge is way more interesting than VR apps
On “The world has reached 8B people but soon we'll hit a decline we'll never reverse”
We’d be better utilized as CPU and memory storage. Maybe generate brain structure, biology state with (re)generative biology like Michael Levin is up to at Tufts0. There’s tons of alternative research paths going untouched that leverage information theory to hack “reality” directly rather than hack on synthetic computers and software within an enclosed time-space vacuum constrained by known hardware limitations. Metaverses running on synthetic machines seems way more prosaic than a metaverse in my own head I might be able to switch on off with a pill. 0link to this video
On “Zebrafish protein unlocks dormant genes for heart repair”
…ent. This process seems to tap into an evolutionarily preserved "blueprint" encoded in the DNA. By reactivating these dormant pathways, differentiated cells like cardiomyocytes regain some of the plasticity and regenerative capacity characteristic of embryonic cells. If we combine this with the work coming out of Dr. Michael Levin's Lab at Tufts ( link to this video the existence of electrical blueprints that orchestrate life, we should see, as we do in this study that the regeneration observed was precisely tailored to the injury, avoiding pathological outcomes like cardiomegaly or uncoordinated growth. This preserved blueprint exists in all differentiated cells.…
On the outside it looks very similar to what Michael Levin found on electrical communication between living cells. There too, the organism's cells were able to structure and repair their larger-scale morphology: link to this video
