Michael Levin
@drmichaellevin
Scientist at Tufts University; my lab studies anatomical and behavioral decision-making at multiple scales of biological, artificial, and hybrid systems.
Wordpress site is up - thoughtforms.life. Register to be notified of book progress, specific events, news, and new posts with photography, essays, interviews, & more. Unlike at drmichaellevin.org, here I will post ideas not fully baked yet, & academic-adjacent content.

Our work on the progression of Barrett’s esophagus into adenocarcinoma was published in Developmental Cell. Our findings suggest the need for treatment paradigms that go beyond targeting cancerous cells to incorporate stromal reprogramming. bit.ly/41djerh
T cells require mitochondria to proliferate, function and generate memory | Nature Immunology nature.com/articles/s4159…
Some videos of halting problem maps (explained in thoughtforms.life/halleys-method…), set to snippets of music from Dio- and Ozzy-era @BlackSabbath. I made this last week before we lost Ozzy, and this has no vocals from either genius, but I guess now is as good a time as any to remind us…
New preprint: "Delusions by design? How everyday AIs might be fuelling psychosis (and what can be done about it)" osf.io/preprints/psya… driven by: substack.com/@drtompollak @HamiltonMorrin @RicardoTwumasi and many others "Large language models (LLMs) are poised to become a…
Finally published: “Top-down and bottom-up neuroscience: overcoming the clash of research cultures” nature.com/articles/s41... Looking for ways to better understand different neuroscientific perspectives and enable productive collaborations
I don't know who needs to hear this, but here goes. I apologize to all those who have sent me your life's work and didn't get a reply. Believe me, I know what it's like to dedicate oneself to a set of ideas, and pour all of one's blood, sweat, and tears into it. I know all about…
A thought, which caused me to slightly update thoughtforms.life/are-we-too-par… (which I wrote because people often ask me whether we can find, "upwards", goal-directed systems we are part of in the same way I talk about finding collective intelligence in components of which we are made).…
Check out this hands-on simulation by @lksshw : lksshw.github.io try it out and let us know if you find anything interesting! this is related to our paper on game theory dynamics in morphogenesis: ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10970… (@PigozziFederico, @adamjgoldstein) see also…
Extracellular vesicles from antler blastema progenitor cells reverse bone loss and mitigate aging-related phenotypes in mice and macaques | Nature Aging nature.com/articles/s4358…
Final version is out @PigozziFederico @adamjgoldstein nature.com/articles/s4200… "Associative conditioning in gene regulatory network models increases integrative causal emergence". Described here: thoughtforms.life/learning-to-be… lots more coming on this, stay tuned.
Being a scientist is still the best job in the world. The constant frustrations, all the crap that goes with trying to keep the lab alive and move things forward - it all resets and washes away in those occasional moments when we catch a glimpse of nature revealing something…
#AIForGood attendees: thanks for the great questions about xenobots! Some of you asked about the demo. If you missed it, it's here: tinyurl.com/AI4Good25.
I'm constantly irritated that I don't have time to read the torrent of cool papers coming faster and faster from amazing people in relevant fields. Other scientists have the same issue and have no time to read most of my lengthy conceptual papers either. So whom are we writing…
Ok so someone who knows more about how GPT and Claude work, please explain this to me. The other day I posted a 2nd discussion with @johnsonmxe - youtu.be/7pe2FyZXD0c?si…. I happened to get the transcript and asked Claude to give me bulletpoints summarizing our discussion. The…
David, thanks for another great conversation!!
How can a single genome run very different programs, and how is that parallel to an animal's brain driving unexpected bodies? Join me this week with guest Michael Levin (@drmichaellevin) as we discuss different forms of intelligence that surround us. eagleman.com/podcast/111…
What is the bioelectric pattern of immortality and mortality in hydra? Happy to share our latest work with Angelina Pimkina, @DrPTMcMillen, @parandetayyebi, @DrPatrickE, @drmichaellevin in the journal Bioelectricity! liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/bi… @TuftsUniversity @wyssinstitute