Michael Levin: The electrical blueprints that orchestrate life | TED
Michael Levin: The electrical blueprints that orchestrate life | TED on HackerTube: recommended by 7 Hacker News commenters across 7 separate months, 2021–2026.
Biologist Michael Levin explains the bioelectric layer that coordinates cells to build organs and bodies, showing footage of two-headed worms and introducing xenobots. He discusses implications for medicine and the nature of life.
What HN commenters said
13 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
LegitShadyMar 2023Strongly recommends
your cells are sensitive to charge in general - cells attempt to maintain certain voltage differentials across their membranes via ion channels in the cell membrane, can communicate voltage information 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. ▶ 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.
in “E-Bandages lightly zap and heal wounds” · View on HN
comboyMar 2022Strongly recommends
Electric potential across other cells and also single-cell organisms is well known and not new. This is new though (and revolutionary): ▶ 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.
in “Electric fields, not individual neurons, may hold information in memory: study” · View on HN
simmanianOct 2025Recommends
The article and the comments remind me of Michael Levin's work on bioelectricity. 20 min ted talk - ▶ this video 3 hr lex fridman episode - [link]
in “Electricity can heal wounds three times as fast (2023)” · View on HN
farkanoidOct 2023Recommends
There's a fascinating (in my opinion) TED talk about this featuring the same Biologist, with examples of regenerative experiments performed using Flatworms: ▶ this video
in “Bioelectricity could regrow limbs and organs” · View on HN
holodukeMay 2023Recommends
Maybe the neurons are the hardware layer. The software is represented by the electronic activity. There is a good video ▶ this video about this topic.
in “Language models can explain neurons in language models” · View on HN
laughingman2Jan 2023Recommends
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, ▶ 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]
in “Will We Know Alien Life When We See It?” · View on HN
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l2pDec 2021Recommends
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: ▶ this video , though there are much longer lectures and papers which I would recommend if you are interested.
in “Amputated fingertips sometimes grow back (2013)” · View on HN
waerhertJun 2026Cites it
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: ▶ this video
in “Show HN: Neural Particle Automata” · View on HN
pdl41064Jan 2025Cites it
Hmga1 reduces repressive histone marks (H3K27me3), effectively unlocking genes typically silenced after embryonic development. 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 ( ▶ 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.
in “Zebrafish protein unlocks dormant genes for heart repair” · View on HN
ahMath8Nov 2022Cites it
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 Tufts[0]. 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. [0] ▶ this video
in “The world has reached 8B people but soon we'll hit a decline we'll never reverse” · View on HN
ArtofIndirectAug 2022Cites it
Extropians hack reality versus a purpose built man made machine: ▶ this video Ideas like designer drugs and therapy to embed experience and knowledge is way more interesting than VR apps
in “What ever happened to the transhumanists?” · View on HN
grishkaMar 2022Cites it
"Something electrical floating around your cells" isn't just the mind either, it's also how the organism coordinates its development: ▶ this video
in “Electric fields, not individual neurons, may hold information in memory: study” · View on HN
flobosgJan 2022Cites it
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 – ▶ this video And a tweet about the article – [link]
in “Frogs Regrow Missing Limbs in Lab Study” · View on HN