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Michael Levin: Anatomical decision-making by cellular collectives

Thomas Ouldridge · 31.9K views · 2021-03-28 · 1:18:06

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Overview

Michael Levin presents his lab's work on how cellular collectives use bioelectric networks to make anatomical decisions. Topics include pattern memories, regeneration and synthetic living organisms.

On Hacker News

HN commenters push it as an example of Levin's talks, which they think deserve far more attention.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2021–2023

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What people said

dosman33 · 2021-07 · Strong recommendation

Moar people need to be talking about this guys work, a buddy clued me in to it last year. Creating new species without any genetic changes... it's huge. Not only has he discovered a new communication control channel in biology, machine learning is unlocking the commands to intelligently manipulate that channel at will. It's many times deeper this too, this is incredible work. Want those tree-grown steaks rather than a stew of muscle cells with no structure? This work is how you grow an intact cow muscle without the rest of the cow with ease. Want to tell those cancer cells using your body as a petrie dish to knock it off and to start working with the rest of your body again? This is a direct path towards that too. Comparing his 2020 ALife talk to another one published in 2021 he's still making progress: [VIDEO] The mainstream of higher-ed biology is not yet fully on board and is still snickering at his work because he is an outsider, but his results are impressive enough that doubters will become irrelevant soon enough.

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Spakman · 2022-08 · Recommendation

I'm not nearly educated enough about this subject to try to summarise it, but the research being carried out by Michael Levin's group into how organisms control anatomy growth is completely fascinating and has the feel of a breakthrough. Almost all the talks I've seen are good, for example: [VIDEO] Creating new species without genetic changes seems wild!

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carapace · 2021-10 · Recommendation

In re: Michael Levin, do see his talks "What Bodies Think About: Bioelectric Computation Outside the Nervous System" [LINK] and "Anatomical decision-making by cellular collectives" [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Thomas Ouldridge, played through YouTube.

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