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.

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

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.


Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(427)

18 | Clifford Johnson on What's So Great About Superstring Theory

18 | Clifford Johnson on What's So Great About Superstring Theory

String theory is a speculative and highly technical proposal for uniting the known forces of nature, including gravity, under a single quantum-mechanical framework. This doesn't seem like a recipe for...

15 Loka 20181h 12min

17 | Annalee Newitz on Science, Fiction, Economics, and Neurosis

17 | Annalee Newitz on Science, Fiction, Economics, and Neurosis

The job of science fiction isn't to predict the future; it's to tell interesting stories in an imaginative setting, exploring the implications of different ways the world could be different from our a...

8 Loka 20181h 11min

16 | Coleen Murphy on Aging, Biology, and the Future

16 | Coleen Murphy on Aging, Biology, and the Future

Aging -- everybody does it, very few people actually do something about it. Coleen Murphy is an exception. In her laboratory at Princeton, she and her team study aging in the famous C. Elegans roundwo...

1 Loka 20181h 4min

15 | David Poeppel on Thought, Language, and How to Understand the Brain

15 | David Poeppel on Thought, Language, and How to Understand the Brain

Language comes naturally to us, but is also deeply mysterious. On the one hand, it manifests as a collection of sounds or marks on paper. On the other hand, it also conveys meaning – words and sentenc...

8 Syys 20181h 24min

14 | Alta Charo on Bioethics and the Law

14 | Alta Charo on Bioethics and the Law

To paraphrase Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, scientists tend to focus on whether they can do something, not whether they should. Questions of what we should do tend to wander away from the pristine bea...

8 Syys 20181h 8min

13 | Neha Narula on Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and the Future of the Internet

13 | Neha Narula on Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and the Future of the Internet

For something of such obvious importance, money is kind of mysterious. It can, as Homer Simpson once memorably noted, be exchanged for goods and services. But who decides exactly how many goods/servic...

8 Syys 20181h 6min

12 | Wynton Marsalis on Jazz, Time, and America

12 | Wynton Marsalis on Jazz, Time, and America

Jazz occupies a special place in the American cultural landscape. It's played in elegant concert halls and run-down bars, and can feature esoteric harmonic experimentation or good old-fashioned foot-s...

4 Syys 20181h 1min

11 | Mike Brown on Killing Pluto and Replacing It with Planet 9

11 | Mike Brown on Killing Pluto and Replacing It with Planet 9

Few events in recent astronomical history have had the worldwide emotional resonance as the 2006 announcement that Pluto was no longer considered a planet, at least as far as the International Astrono...

27 Elo 20181h 17min

Suosittua kategoriassa Tiede

rss-mita-tulisi-tietaa
rss-poliisin-mieli
tiedekulma-podcast
docemilia
rss-tiedetta-vai-tarinaa
utelias-mieli
rss-duodecim-lehti
rss-lapsuuden-rakentajat-podcast
rss-lihavuudesta-podcast
filocast-filosofian-perusteet
rss-duokkari-ekstra
rss-laakaripodi
rss-metsantuntijat-podcast
rss-totuuden-liepeilla