Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biological – Page 2

Michael Levin is a scientist at Tufts University; his lab studies anatomical and behavioral decision-making at multiple scales of biological, artificial, and hybrid systems. He works at the intersection of developmental biology, artificial life, bioengineering, synthetic morphology, and cognitive science. Respective papers are linked below.

Round 1 Interview | What are Cognitive Light Cones? • What are Cognitive Light Cones? (Mich…
Round 2 Interview | Agency, Attractors, & Observer-Dependent Computation in Biology & Beyond • Agency, Attractors, & Observer-Depend…

Bioelectric Networks: The cognitive glue enabling evolutionary scaling from physiology to mind https://link.springer.com/article/10…
Darwin’s Agential Materials: Evolutionary implications of multiscale competency in developmental biology https://link.springer.com/article/10…
Biology, Buddhism, and AI: Care as the Driver of Intelligence https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/24/5/710

Bioelectric Networks as \.

Read more | >

The mechanism can also create better biological imaging tools to see deep inside tissues using safer infrared light. It could even cool materials with lasers, by removing thermal energy through UCPL.

“By establishing an intrinsic model of UCPL in single-walled carbon nanotubes, we hope to open up new possibilities for designing advanced optoelectronic and photonic devices,” added Kato.

What the RIKEN scientists have essentially discovered is that one does not need structural defects for up-conversion in carbon nanotubes. Instead, phonons and dark excitons do the trick. This opens up cleaner, more efficient, and more flexible designs for future energy and photonic technologies.

Read more | >

We discuss Michael Levin’s paper “Self-Improvising Memory: A Perspective on Memories as Agential, Dynamically Reinterpreting Cognitive Glue.” Levin is a scientist at Tufts University, his lab studies anatomical and behavioral decision-making across biological, artificial, and hybrid systems. His work spans developmental biology, artificial life, bioengineering, synthetic morphology, and cognitive science. 🎥 Next, watch my first interview with Michael Levin… What are Cognitive Light Cones? • What are Cognitive Light Cones? (Mich… ❶ Memories as Agents 0:00 Introduction 1:40 2024 Highlights from Levin Lab 3:20 Stress sharing paper summary 6:15 Paradox of change: Species persist don’t evolve 7:20 Bow-tie architectures 10:00 🔥 Memories as messages from your past self 12:50 Polycomputing 16:45 Confabulation 17:55 What evidence supports the idea that memories are agential? 22:00 Thought experiment: Entities from earth’s core ❷ Information Patterns 31:30 Memory is not a filing cabinet 32:30 Are information patterns agential? 35:00 🔥 Caterpillar/butterfly… sea slug memory transfer 37:40 Bow-tie architectures are EVERYWHERE 43:20 Bottlenecks “scary” for information ❸ Connections & Implications 45:30 🔥 Black holes/white holes as bow-ties (Lee Smolin) 47:20 What is confabulation? AI hallucinations 52:30 Gregg Henriques & self-justifying apes… all good agents storytellers 54:20 Information telling stories… Joseph Campbell’s journey for a single cell 1:00:50 What comes next? 🚾 Works Cited 🚩 Self-Improvising Memory: A Perspective on Memories as Agential, Dynamically Reinterpreting Cognitive Glue https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/26/6/481 https://thoughtforms.life/suti-the-se… our way to health with robot cells | Michael Levin (Big Think 2023) • Biohacking our way to health with rob… https://peregrinecr.com/ 🚀 What is this channel? Exploring Truth in philosophy, science, & art. We’ll uncover concepts from psychology, mythology, spirituality, literature, media, and more. If you like Lex Fridman or Curt Jaimungal, you’ll love this educational channel. p.s. Please subscribe! Young channel here. =) #science #memory #biology #computing #mind #intelligence #attractor #polycomputing #bioelectric #cybernetics #research #life

Read more | >

Recorded 6 November 2024. Michael Levin of Tufts University presents “Non-neural intelligence: biological architectures for problem-solving in diverse spaces” at IPAM’s Naturalistic Approaches to Artificial Intelligence Workshop. Abstract: The familiar, readily-recognized intelligence of brainy animals has long served as inspiration for AI. However, biological intelligence is far older than neurons, and indeed than multicellularity. My lab studies problem-solving in cells, tissues, and even subcellular components, operating in different spaces and at different scales than conventional intelligent agents. In this talk, I will describe a framework for detecting, communicating with, and creating collective intelligences, and show examples of how the fundamental properties of life suggest novel approaches for ethically relating to diverse and fascinating engineered and hybrid intelligences. Learn more online at: https://www.ipam.ucla.edu/programs/wo…

Read more | >

Growing evidence suggests that subatomic phenomena can shape fundamental activities in cells, including how organisms handle energy at the smallest scales. Quantum biology, as it’s being called, is no longer just a fringe idea among researchers.

On May 5, 2025, scientists at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem announced a study linking quantum mechanics with key cellular functions in protein-based systems.

Read more | >

What happens when intelligence escapes the bounds of flesh and bone? In this episode, we explore post-biological civilizations—entities that may trade biology for digital minds, machine bodies, or stranger forms still—and ask what becomes of identity, purpose, and humanity when the body is no longer required.

Watch my exclusive video Antimatter Propulsion: Harnessing the Power of Annihilation — https://nebula.tv/videos/isaacarthur–… Nebula using my link for 40% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Get a Lifetime Membership to Nebula for only $300: https://go.nebula.tv/lifetime?ref=isa… Use the link gift.nebula.tv/isaacarthur to give a year of Nebula to a friend for just $30. SFIA Discord Server: / discord Credits: Post-Biological Civilizations: Life Beyond Flesh and Bone Episode 498a; May 11, 2025 Written, Produced & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur Edited by: Ludwig Luska Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images Music Courtesy of Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com/creator Chris Zabriskie, “Unfoldment, Revealment” Phase Shift, “Forest Night” Lewis Gill, “The Phobos Diary” Stellardrone, “Red Giant” 0:00 Intro 1:24 The Physical Presence of Post-Biological Civilizations 3:38 Societal & Cultural Aspects of Post-Biological Life 5:08 The Scifi Path to Post-Biological Life 8:03 The Singularity and the Ultimate Transition 9:47 Many Paths to Post-Biological Life 17:50 The Fermi Paradox & Post-Biological Civilizations 27:39 Ethics & the Fate of Humanity 29:17 The Transition Process at a Civilizational Scale.
Get Nebula using my link for 40% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur.
Get a Lifetime Membership to Nebula for only $300: https://go.nebula.tv/lifetime?ref=isa…
Use the link gift.nebula.tv/isaacarthur to give a year of Nebula to a friend for just $30.

SFIA Discord Server: / discord.
Credits:
Post-Biological Civilizations: Life Beyond Flesh and Bone.
Episode 498a; May 11, 2025
Written, Produced & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur.
Edited by: Ludwig Luska.
Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images.
Music Courtesy of Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com/creator.
Chris Zabriskie, \

Read more | >

Today, we’re launching Anthropic’s AI for Science program – a new initiative designed to accelerate scientific research and discovery through access to our API. This program will provide free API credits to support researchers working on high-impact scientific projects, with a particular focus on biology and life sciences applications.

Why AI for Science? At Anthropic, we believe that AI has the potential to significantly accelerate scientific progress. Advanced AI reasoning and language capabilities can help researchers analyze complex scientific data, generate hypotheses, design experiments, and communicate findings more effectively. By reducing the time and resources needed for scientific discovery, we can help address some of humanity’s most pressing challenges.

Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that’s working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.

Read more | >

The deconstruction of cellulose is essential for the conversion of biomass into fuels and chemicals. But cellulose, the most abundant renewable polymer on the planet, is extremely recalcitrant to biological depolymerization. Although composed entirely of glucose units, its crystalline microfibrillar structure and association with lignin and hemicelluloses in plant cell walls make it highly resistant to degradation.

As a result, its degradation in nature is slow and requires complex enzymatic systems. The deconstruction of cellulose, which could, among other things, significantly increase the production of ethanol from sugarcane, has been a major technological challenge for decades.

Researchers from the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM), in partnership with colleagues from other institutions in Brazil and abroad, have just obtained an enzyme that could revolutionize the process of deconstructing cellulose, allowing, among other technological applications, the large-scale production of so-called second-generation ethanol, derived from agro-industrial waste such as sugarcane bagasse and corn straw. The study was published in the journal Nature.

Read more | >

Researchers demonstrate an active-fluid system whose behaviors map directly to predictions of the six-vertex model—an exactly solvable model that was originally developed to explain the behavior of ice.

Active fluids—collections of self-propelled agents such as bacteria, cells, or colloids—consume energy to move, flowing without being pushed [1]. These materials break the conventional rules of fluid dynamics, as they can flow spontaneously, switch direction without apparent cause, and organize into complex patterns with no external control. Active fluids were initially studied to understand the collective dynamics observed in biological systems. Now they offer a rich playground for exploring nonequilibrium physics. Yet, in the ever-expanding universe of active-fluid physics, it is rare to find an experimental system that maps precisely onto a mathematically exact model.

Read more | >

A team of Harvard researchers have unveiled a way to map the molecular underpinnings of how learning and memories are formed, a new technique expected to offer insights that may pave the way for new treatments for neurological disorders such as dementia.

“This technique provides a lens into the synaptic architecture of memory, something previously unattainable in such detail,” said Adam Cohen, professor of chemistry and and of physics and senior co-author of the research paper, published in Nature Neuroscience.

Memory resides within a dense network of billions of neurons within the brain. We rely on synaptic plasticity—the strengthening and modulation of connections between these neurons—to facilitate learning and memory.

Read more | >