Michael Levin: Biology, Life, Aliens, Evolution, Embryogenesis & Xenobots | Lex Fridman Podcast #325

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Recommends nikivi · 2022-10 · on “A Universal Cancer Treatment?”

I loved Michael Levin's thoughts on solving cancer. Kind of similar to immunotherapy but on a level of reprogramming the cells back that got 'lost' from their big purpose in their organ. [this video]

Recommends tux1968 · 2022-10 · on “Intelligence Beyond the Brain [video]”

Michael Levin recently appeared on the Lex Fridman podcast*, and here he goes over much of the same amazing material, but along with a visual presentation. * Michael Levin: Biology, Life, Aliens, Evolution, Embryogenesis & Xenobots | Lex Fridman [this video]

Recommends ruffrey · 2024-01 · on “Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?”

Related, lately I have been enthralled with the work of Michael Levin at Tufts. He studies things like goal directed behavior of cells and systems of cells. Here is an intro to his work: [this video]

Cites DonHopkins · 2022-11 · on “Ask HN: What weird technical scene are you fond/part of?”

That's one of my long time interests and hobbies, which I write about on HN and discuss with other people frequently. I'm supposed to be doing something else right now so I'll quickly drop a few disorganized quotes and links here. (Sorry I didn't have time to be more concise!) A few years ago I ran across Max Bittker's beautiful "Sandspiel", which is a delightful cellular automata toy that simulates sand and other rules: [LINK] A few days ago I saw him tweet some amazing stuff that resonated with me, which then led me to discover what he's been working with Lu Wilson (TodePond): Sandspiel Studio -- user definable rules using a block based visual programming language. [LINK] "working on goth

Cites DonHopkins · 2023-01 · on “Making Sandspiel”

I am a huge fan of Sandspiel, which Max described in this article from 2019, and recently I was delighted to discover that he and TodePond have been doing a huge amount of wonderful work since then. What happens when you combine Sandspiel with a Scratch-like blocks based visual programming language that lets you look inside and see how rules work, tweak and modify them, and even define your own rules for different types of particles? And then form a community around it for sharing Here is Max's and TodePond's brilliantly ambitious visually programmable sequel, Sandspiel Studio! [LINK] Here's my profile, where you can play with the version of Max's flower growing rule that he shows here: [LIN

Cites DonnyV · 2024-12 · on “Consciousness Might Hide in Our Brain's Electric Fields”

Michael Levin has been doing research activating certain types of cell growth based on certain field frequencies. I wonder if this ties together. [this video] I wonder if neurons are actually the hard drive and ephaptic fields are the software or network the software runs on.

Cites simmanian · 2025-10 · on “Electricity can heal wounds three times as fast (2023)”

The article and the comments remind me of Michael Levin's work on bioelectricity. 20 min ted talk - [LINK] 3 hr lex fridman episode - [this video]

Cites stevenjgarner · 2026-01 · on “We Were Wrong About Our Minds–and AI”

Michael Levin’s research fundamentally challenges the traditional biological view that intelligence is exclusive to the brain, proposing instead that "mind" and agency are distributed throughout all levels of biological organization. By studying how cellular collectives communicate via bioelectric networks, Levin demonstrates that cells cooperate toward a specific "target morphology," or anatomical goal, independent of a fixed genetic blueprint. This is most vividly illustrated by the creation of Xenobots—synthetic lifeforms made from frog skin cells that spontaneously reorganize into new organisms with novel behaviors, such as kinematic self-replication. This "scale-free cognition" suggests