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.


Episoder(418)

201 | Ed Yong on How Animals Sense the World

201 | Ed Yong on How Animals Sense the World

All of us construct models of the world, and update them on the basis of evidence brought to us by our senses. Scientists try to be more rigorous about it, but we all do it. It's natural that this pro...

20 Jun 20221h 9min

AMA | June 2022

AMA | June 2022

Welcome to the June 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! We are inaugurating a slightly different publication schedule, in which these monthly AMA will take the place of one of the regular Monda...

13 Jun 20223h 4min

200 | Solo: The Philosophy of the Multiverse

200 | Solo: The Philosophy of the Multiverse

The 200th episode of Mindscape! Thanks to everyone for sticking around for this long. To celebrate, a solo episode discussing a set of issues naturally arising at the intersection of philosophy and ph...

6 Jun 20222h 14min

199 | Elizabeth Cohen on Time and Other Political Values

199 | Elizabeth Cohen on Time and Other Political Values

Time is everywhere, pervading each aspect of intellectual inquiry — from physics to philosophy to biology to psychology, and all the way up to politics. Considerations of time help govern a nation's s...

30 Mai 20221h 12min

198 | Nick Lane on Powering Biology

198 | Nick Lane on Powering Biology

The origin of life here on Earth was an important and fascinating event, but it was also a long time ago and hasn't left many pieces of direct evidence concerning what actually happened. One set of cl...

23 Mai 20221h 25min

197 | Catherine Brinkley on the Science of Cities

197 | Catherine Brinkley on the Science of Cities

The concept of the city is a crucial one for human civilization: people living in proximity, bringing in resources from outside, separated from the labors of subsistence so they can engage in the trad...

16 Mai 20221h 8min

AMA | May 2022

AMA | May 2022

Welcome to the May 2022 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 questio...

12 Mai 20223h 36min

196 | Judea Pearl on Cause and Effect

196 | Judea Pearl on Cause and Effect

To say that event A causes event B is to not only make a claim about our actual world, but about other possible worlds — in worlds where A didn't happen but everything else was the same, B would not h...

9 Mai 20221h 16min

Populært innen Vitenskap

fastlegen
tingenes-tilstand
rekommandert
rss-nysgjerrige-norge
forskningno
sinnsyn
vett-og-vitenskap-med-gaute-einevoll
liberal-halvtime
smart-forklart
rss-rekommandert
pod-britannia
jss
fjellsportpodden
villmarksliv
rss-overskuddsliv
nevropodden
aldring-og-helse-podden
tomprat-med-gunnar-tjomlid
dekodet-2
rss-bondevennen