132 | Michael Levin on Growth, Form, Information, and the Self

132 | Michael Levin on Growth, Form, Information, and the Self

As a semi-outsider, it's fun for me to watch as a new era dawns in biology: one that adds ideas from physics, big data, computer science, and information theory to the usual biological toolkit. One of the big areas of study in this burgeoning field is the relationship between the basic bioinformatic building blocks (genes and proteins) to the macroscopic organism that eventually results. That relationship is not a simple one, as we're discovering. Standard metaphors notwithstanding, an organism is not a machine based on genetic blueprints. I talk with biologist and information scientist Michael Levin about how information and physical constraints come together to make organisms and selves.

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Michael Levin received his Ph.D. in genetics from Harvard University. He is currently Distinguished Professor and Vannevar Bush Chair in the Biology department at Tufts University, and serves as director of the Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology. His work on left-right asymmetric body structures is on Nature's list of 100 Milestones of Developmental Biology of the Century.


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Jaksot(427)

144 | Solo: Are We Moving Beyond the Standard Model?

144 | Solo: Are We Moving Beyond the Standard Model?

I've been a professional physicist since the 1980's, and not once over the course of my career has a particle-physics experiment produced a completely surprising new result. We've discovered particles...

26 Huhti 20211h 11min

143 | Julia Galef on Openness, Bias, and Rationality

143 | Julia Galef on Openness, Bias, and Rationality

Mom, apple pie, and rationality — all things that are unquestionably good, right? But rationality, as much as we might value it, is easier to aspire to than to achieve. And there are more than a few h...

19 Huhti 20211h 32min

AMA | April 2021

AMA | April 2021

Welcome to the April 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). I take the large number of quest...

14 Huhti 20212h 41min

142 | Charlie Jane Anders on Stories and How to Write Them

142 | Charlie Jane Anders on Stories and How to Write Them

Telling a story seems like the most natural, human thing in the world. We all do it, all the time. And who amongst us doesn't think we could be a fairly competent novelist, if we just bothered to take...

12 Huhti 20211h 26min

141 | Zeynep Tufekci on Information and Attention in a Networked World

141 | Zeynep Tufekci on Information and Attention in a Networked World

In a world flooded with information, everybody necessarily makes choices about what we pay attention to. This basic fact can be manipulated in any number of ways, from advertisers micro-targeting spec...

5 Huhti 20211h 17min

140 | Dean Buonomano on Time, Reality, and the Brain

140 | Dean Buonomano on Time, Reality, and the Brain

"Time" and "the brain" are two of those things that are somewhat mysterious, but it would be hard for us to live without. So just imagine how much fun it is to bring them together. Dean Buonomano is o...

29 Maalis 20211h 27min

139 | Elizabeth Anderson on Equality, Work, and Ideology

139 | Elizabeth Anderson on Equality, Work, and Ideology

Imagine two people with exactly the same innate abilities, but one is born into a wealthy family and the other is born into poverty. Or two people born into similar circumstances, but one is paralyzed...

22 Maalis 20211h 19min

138 | Daryl Morey on Analytics, Psychology, and Basketball

138 | Daryl Morey on Analytics, Psychology, and Basketball

You might think that human beings, exhausted by competing for resources and rewards in the real world, would take it easy and stick to cooperation in their spare time. But no; we are fascinated by com...

15 Maalis 20211h 16min

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