#849: Dr. Michael Levin — Reprogramming Bioelectricity, Updating "Software" for Anti-Aging, Treating Cancer Without Drugs, Cognition of Cells, and Much More

#849: Dr. Michael Levin — Reprogramming Bioelectricity, Updating "Software" for Anti-Aging, Treating Cancer Without Drugs, Cognition of Cells, and Much More

Dr. Michael Levin (@drmichaellevin) is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor of Biology at Tufts University and director of the Allen Discovery Center. He is primarily interested in how intelligence self-organizes in a diverse range of natural, engineered, and hybrid embodiments. Applied to the collective intelligence of cell groups undergoing morphogenesis, these ideas have allowed the Levin Lab to develop new applications in birth defects, organ regeneration, and cancer suppression.

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TIMESTAMPS:

  • [00:00:00] Start
  • [00:03:18] The Body Electric: A Vancouver bookstore discovery that launched a career.
  • [00:04:19] Bioelectricity 101: Your brain uses it to think; your body used it before you had a brain.
  • [00:06:05] The lesson learned by scrambled tadpole faces that rearrange themselves.
  • [00:08:51] Software vs. hardware: The genome is your factory settings, not your destiny.
  • [00:11:43] Two-headed flatworms: Rewriting biological memory without touching DNA.
  • [00:16:20] Seeing memories: Voltage-sensitive dyes reveal the body’s hidden blueprints.
  • [00:20:12] Three killer apps for humans: Birth defects, regeneration, and cancer.
  • [00:24:27] Cancer as identity crisis: Cells forgetting they’re part of a team.
  • [00:25:40] The boredom theory of aging: Goal-seeking systems with nothing left to do.
  • [00:30:09] Planaria’s immortality hack: Rip yourself in half every two weeks.
  • [00:31:27] Manhattan Project for aging: Crack cellular cognition, everything else falls into place.
  • [00:33:47] Giving cells new goals: Convince a gut to become an eye.
  • [00:37:42] Must mammalian mortality be mandatory?
  • [00:40:25] Cross-pollination: Why biologists would benefit from programming courses.
  • [00:47:15] Does acupuncture actually do anything?
  • [00:50:57] Placebo as feature, not bug: Words and drugs share the same mechanism.
  • [00:55:06] The frame problem: Why robots explode and rats intuit what matters.
  • [00:59:41] Binary thinking is a trap: “Is it intelligent?” is the wrong question.
  • [01:07:46] Minimal brain, normal IQ: Clinical cases that break neuroscience.
  • [01:08:45] Super panpsychism: Your liver might have opinions.
  • [01:13:48] The Platonic space: Bodies as thin clients for patterns from elsewhere.
  • [01:15:24] Keep asking “why” and you end up in the math department.
  • [01:23:07] Polycomputing: Sorting algorithms secretly doing side quests.
  • [01:28:24] Power scaling for the future and avoiding red herrings for understanding machine minds.
  • [01:34:06] Sci-fi recommendations.
  • [01:37:24] Cliff Tabin’s toast and Dan Dennett’s steel manning.
  • [01:41:21] Parting thoughts.

*

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Avsnitt(863)

#803: Craig Mod Returns — Epic Walks in Japan, The Art of Slowness, Digital Detox, Publishing “Impossible” Books, and Choosing Beauty Over Scale

#803: Craig Mod Returns — Epic Walks in Japan, The Art of Slowness, Digital Detox, Publishing “Impossible” Books, and Choosing Beauty Over Scale

Craig Mod Returns! Craig is a writer, photographer, and walker living in Tokyo and Kamakura, Japan. He is the author of Things Become Other Things and Kissa by Kissa. He also writes the newsletters Ro...

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#802: Craig Mod — The Real Japan, Cheap Apartments in Tokyo, Productive Side Quests, Creative Retreats, Buying Future Freedom, and Being Possessed by Spirits

Craig Mod is a writer, photographer, and walker living in Tokyo and Kamakura, Japan. He is the author of Things Become Other Things and Kissa by Kissa. He also writes the newsletters Roden and Ridgeli...

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#801: In Case You Missed It: February 2025 Recap of "The Tim Ferriss Show"

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#800: Ev Williams — The Art of Pivoting (e.g., Odeo to Twitter), Strategic Quitting, The Dangers of Premature Scaling, Must-Read Books, and More

#800: Ev Williams — The Art of Pivoting (e.g., Odeo to Twitter), Strategic Quitting, The Dangers of Premature Scaling, Must-Read Books, and More

Ev Williams is the co-founder of Mozi, a new social network that helps you connect in person with the people you care about. Over the past 25 years, Ev has co-founded several companies that have helpe...

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#799: Richard Taylor and Greg Broadmore, Wētā Workshop — Untapping Creativity, Stories from The Lord of the Rings, The Magic of New Zealand, Four Tenets to Live By, and The Only Sentence of Self-Help You Need

#799: Richard Taylor and Greg Broadmore, Wētā Workshop — Untapping Creativity, Stories from The Lord of the Rings, The Magic of New Zealand, Four Tenets to Live By, and The Only Sentence of Self-Help You Need

Richard Taylor is the co-founder and creative lead at Wētā Workshop, which he runs with his wife and co-founder Tania Rodger. Wētā Workshop is a concept design studio and manufacturing facility that s...

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#798: Terry Real — Breaking the Rules of Traditional Couples Therapy for Superior Results, A Few Frameworks That Work

#798: Terry Real — Breaking the Rules of Traditional Couples Therapy for Superior Results, A Few Frameworks That Work

For this episode, I’m doing something a bit different. I’m featuring five chapters from the audiobook Fierce Intimacy by Terry Real. What you will hear in this episode will help you identify both your...

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#797: Dr. Keith Baar, UC Davis — Simple Exercises That Can Repair Tendons (Tennis Elbow, etc.), Collagen Fact vs. Fiction, Isometrics vs. Eccentrics, JAK Inhibitors, Growth Hormone vs. IGF-1, The Anti-RICE Protocol, and How to Use Load as an Anti-Inflammatory

#797: Dr. Keith Baar, UC Davis — Simple Exercises That Can Repair Tendons (Tennis Elbow, etc.), Collagen Fact vs. Fiction, Isometrics vs. Eccentrics, JAK Inhibitors, Growth Hormone vs. IGF-1, The Anti-RICE Protocol, and How to Use Load as an Anti-Inflammatory

Dr. Keith Baar is a Professor at the University of California, Davis in the Department of Physiology and Membrane Biology. During his Ph.D. studies, his research revealed that mechanical strain on mus...

25 Feb 20251h 59min

#796: L.A. Paul — On Becoming a Vampire, Whether or Not to Have Kids, Getting Incredible Mentorship for $250, Transformative Experiences, and More

#796: L.A. Paul — On Becoming a Vampire, Whether or Not to Have Kids, Getting Incredible Mentorship for $250, Transformative Experiences, and More

L.A. Paul is the Millstone Family Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Cognitive Science at Yale University. She is also the author of Transformative Experience. Her work on transformative experie...

20 Feb 20251h 42min

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