new paper with @robertchisciure.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1... "Cognition all the way down 2.0: neuroscience beyond neurons in the diverse intelligence era" 🧪

New paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "New insights in the gut–brain axis: the role of bioelectrical microbiome" Juan Lombardo-Hernandez, Jesús Mansilla-Guardiola, Stefano Geuna, Michael Levin, Celia Herrera-Rincon #bioelectricity #microbiome

Official version is out - aging as loss of goal-directedness: advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... @bhartl.bsky.social Léo Pio-Lopez

New paper dropped! Led by @thosvarley.bsky.social and Pai Vaibhav, we show that flows of information within a #xenobot resemble flows of information observed in adult human brains. Thomas provides caveats and context below. w/ @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, Caitlin Grasso, & Jeantine Lunshof.

For those interested in our growing body of work on "polycomputation", here's my attempt to summarize it in 40 minutes: youtu.be/XnObbF2FkE4?...

Here's a talk that's quite different from ones I've given before, although it has connections to everything I often talk about, presented at #alife2025: thoughtforms.life/meet-a-new-s... (downloadable slides link there too). 🧪

Thanks for hosting us Foresight Institute! (w/ @tarinz.bsky.social and @drmichaellevin.bsky.social) www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCq2...

New paper: Santosh Manicka www.cell.com/cell-reports... "Field-mediated bioelectric basis of morphogenetic prepatterning" #morphogenesis #bioelectricity #fields 🧪

New paper! www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy... "Temporal depth in a coherent self and in depersonalization: theoretical model" @lancelotdacosta.bsky.social @tolchinsky.bsky.social Chris Fields Daniel Friedman Rachael Murphy David Pincus

New #preprint - @bhartl.bsky.social , Léo Pio-Lopez arxiv.org/abs/2509.11131 "Neural cellular automata: applications to biology and beyond classical AI"

New #preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @pigozzife.bsky.social, Tom Cirrito - how to re-set memories in GRNs - erasing memories doesn't reduce gains in causal emergence made while learning - higher causal emergence is associated with more learning -> asymmetric ratchet for intelligence 🧪

Final version: "The Role of Bioelectrical Patterns in Regulative Morphogenesis: An Evolutionary Simulation and Validation in Planarian Regeneration" ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/110... 🧪

Can a single cell learn? Even without a brain, some microbes show simple forms of cognition. Can this basal cognition be engineered? Check our new paper with @jordiplam.bsky.social on the minimal synthetic circuits & their cognitive limits. @drmichaellevin.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New preprint, osf.io/preprints/ps... a commentary to @anilseth.bsky.social's pice at www.cambridge.org/core/journal... 🧪

Our paper is published. Co-authored with @drmichaellevin.bsky.social , Chris Fields, @lancelotdacosta.bsky.social ta.bsky.social, Daniel Friedman, Rachael Murphy, David Pincus www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy... this work presents a computational model of dissociations

Are there computational models of the chemistry thought to be relevant to the origin of life? I know there's no consensus, but does anyone have an actually runnable simulation of any plausible chemical soup or reaction dynamics of any kind that are thought to be realistic for an OoL scenario?

Final version of paper is out: www.cell.com/iscience/ful... "Bioelectric characterization of senescing human keratinocytes" #bioelectricity #aging

New paper! Remember this: www.nature.com/articles/s41... showing massive nerve growth following zolmitriptan application in frog model? Well, now here it is in mammals! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "Sustained Serotonergic Stimulation Platform for Peripheral Axonal Regeneration"

New preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2508.11423 "Open Questions about Time and Self-reference in Living Systems" by Samson Abramsky, Wolfgang Banzhaf, Leo S. D. Caves, Michael Levin, Penousal Machado, Charles Ofria, Susan Stepney, Roger White 🧪

New preprint: "Delusions by design? How everyday AIs might be fuelling psychosis (and what can be done about it)" osf.io/preprints/ps... substack.com/@drtompollak @hamiltonmorrin.bsky.social @aldersonday.bsky.social

Check out hands-on simulations by Lakshwin Shreesha: lksshw.github.io Try it out and let us know if you find anything interesting! Related to our paper on game theory dynamics in morphogenesis: ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/109...

A map of the halting problem, illustrated for root-finding methods: thoughtforms.life/halleys-meth...

Final version is out: www.nature.com/articles/s42... "Associative conditioning in gene regulatory network models increases integrative causal emergence". 🧪 Described here: thoughtforms.life/learning-to-...

How does the massively flexible material of the brain figure out how to accomplish its goals? Learn more on this week's episode of Inner Cosmos with guest Mike Levin (@drmichaellevin.bsky.social): "Might we be surrounded with undetected minds?" eagleman.com/podcast/111 #brain #plasticity

How can a single genome run very different programs, and how is that parallel to an animal's brain driving unexpected bodies? Join me with guest Michael Levin (@drmichaellevin.bsky.social) as we discuss different forms of intelligence that surround us. eagleman.com/podcast/111 #brain #plasticity

What is the bioelectric pattern of immortality and mortality in hydra? Happy to share our latest work with Angelina Pimkina, Patrick McMillen, @parandetayyebi.bsky.social, @drpatricke.bsky.social, and @drmichaellevin.bsky.social in the journal Bioelectricity! www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/...

Just arrived at the UN's #AIForGood Symposium in Geneva. Was in time to catch Daniela Rus' talk on AI Governance; I'll be speaking about #xenobots tomorrow. (Joint work w/ Doug Blackiston, @samkriegman.com & @drmichaellevin.bsky.social).

New paper out, amazing team at Wyss Institute! www.nature.com/articles/s43... "AI-enabled drug prediction and gene network analysis reveal therapeutic use of vorinostat for Rett Syndrome in preclinical models"

Playing with a new IR filter. #photography thoughtforms.life/infrared-pho...

Final version of this paper is out, "Cases of Unconventional Information Flow Across the Mind-Body Interface" www.mindmatter.de/resources/pd... www.mindmatter.de/journal/abst... (check out the journal's other content, some great stuff here: www.mindmatter.de/journal/mmco...)

Quick update. People often email me for a podcast link. I didn't have a podcast, until now! Here it is: thoughtforms-life.aipodcast.ing Check it out and let me know if there are any bugs or missing features you'd like to see. We have additional functionality coming soon.

The next chapter of the Saga of the Anthrobots is out in final form: advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... (the Tufts story on it: now.tufts.edu/2025/06/17/r...). I'll do a blog post on this soon. The content of the first paper is described here: thoughtforms.life/meet-the-ant....

New paper with @bhartl.bsky.social : "What does evolution make? Learning in living lineages and machines" cell.com/trends/genet... Genes code for proteins, but what is the relationship between the genome and the large-scale form and function of organisms? What is a good formalism for thinking

Final version of this paper with Alexis Pietak (allencenter.tufts.edu/our-team/ale..., www.researchgate.net/profile/Alex...) is now out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "Harnessing the analog computing power of regulatory networks with the Regulatory Network Machine"

The Woodstock of biology 2 + Nightscience is trending (alongside some other topic) #theconferencetoendallconferences #TCTeAC

Online Now! A new Opinion: "What does evolution make? Learning in living lineages and machines" by Benedikt Hartl (@bhartl.bsky.social) & Michael Levin (@drmichaellevin.bsky.social) FREE access till July 30th with this link: authors.elsevier.com/a/1lE%7EGcQb...

New paper: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Move over Slijper's Goat (discussed in www.stri.si.edu/sites/public...) which walked on 2 legs: here's a monkey version: packaged-media.redd.it/gbm0o9d1pb4f...

New preprint, with Richard Watson (www.richardawatson.com) on machine, computational, and cognitive metaphors in cell, developmental, and evolutionary biology: osf.io/preprints/os... "Machines All the Way Up and Cognition All the Way Down: Updating the machine metaphor in biology"

New preprint! arxiv.org/abs/2505.15849 : Reed Bender (www.linkedin.com/in/reed-bend...), Karina Kofman (www.linkedin.com/in/karina-ko...), @blaiseaguera.bsky.social "What Lives? A meta-analysis of diverse opinions on the definition of life"

Great conversation I had yesterday with the cognitive scientist Tom Froese, about diagrammatic relationships between his "Irruption Theory", Darwin's thought, "difference-first" ontologies, and @drmichaellevin.bsky.social 's work on developmental plasticity: youtu.be/BqX4ycjv-KM?...

New paper with @bhartl.bsky.social and @andreaszoettl.bsky.social Neuroevolution of decentralized decision-making in N-bead swimmers leads to scalable and robust collective locomotion t.co/UOaCSE9B9d

What is possible in the space of organs, organoids and organisms? How can synthetic biology help designing new types of tissues and even novel organs? How can cognition be engineered from scratch? Check our paper @jordiplam.bsky.social @drmichaellevin.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How can biological systems anticipate future events? In our new paper with @jordiplam.bsky.social, we show how a simple genetic circuit can predict future trends through a simple (and perhaps widespread) mechanism @drmichaellevin.bsky.social @koseskalab.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New paper - left-right asymmetry, behavior, embryogenesis, evolution: link.springer.com/protocol/10.... 🧪

Some interesting aspects of Xenobot transcriptome! @paivaibhav.bsky.social , Leo Pio-Lopez, Megan Sperry, @drpatricke.bsky.social, @parandetayyebi.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s42...