Mike Levin
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social
I'm a scientist at Tufts University; my lab studies anatomical and behavioral decision-making at multiple scales of biological, artificial, and hybrid systems. www.drmichaellevin.org
Pinned
Mike Levin
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social
· Nov 19
Forms of life, forms of mind | Dr. Michael Levin
Thoughts on the science and philosophy of embodied minds, and the lives that can be.
thoughtforms.life
Wordpress blog thoughtforms.life. Unlike drmichaellevin.org, here I post speculative ideas, personal thoughts on what our research means, nature photography, essays, interviews, etc. Register to be notified of books' progress, events, and news, access downloadable content, etc.
December 21, 2025 at 1:15 AM
A new, long paper on evolution - natural induction - split into 2:
royalsocietypublishing.org/rsfs/article...
royalsocietypublishing.org/rsfs/article...
@RichardWatson90 and Tim Lewens
royalsocietypublishing.org/rsfs/article...
royalsocietypublishing.org/rsfs/article...
@RichardWatson90 and Tim Lewens
Evolution by natural induction
Abstract. It is conventionally assumed that all evolutionary adaptation is produced, and could only possibly be produced, by natural selection. Natural ind
royalsocietypublishing.org
December 19, 2025 at 11:49 PM
A new, long paper on evolution - natural induction - split into 2:
royalsocietypublishing.org/rsfs/article...
royalsocietypublishing.org/rsfs/article...
@RichardWatson90 and Tim Lewens
royalsocietypublishing.org/rsfs/article...
royalsocietypublishing.org/rsfs/article...
@RichardWatson90 and Tim Lewens
December 18, 2025 at 3:25 PM
December 11, 2025 at 6:37 PM
December 11, 2025 at 1:52 AM
Final version is out: @LPiolopez
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
"Atavistic Genetic Expression Dissociation (AGED) DuringAging: Meta-Phylostratigraphic Evidence of Cellular andTissue-Level Phylogenetic Dissociation"
🧪
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
"Atavistic Genetic Expression Dissociation (AGED) DuringAging: Meta-Phylostratigraphic Evidence of Cellular andTissue-Level Phylogenetic Dissociation"
🧪
Atavistic Genetic Expression Dissociation (AGED) During Aging: Meta‐Phylostratigraphic Evidence of Cellular and Tissue‐Level Phylogenetic Dissociation
Aging represents an atavistic over-representation of differential expression in the most ancient genes and under-representation in the evolutionary youngest genes for two multi-tissue aging databases...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
December 10, 2025 at 12:16 AM
Final version is out: @LPiolopez
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
"Atavistic Genetic Expression Dissociation (AGED) DuringAging: Meta-Phylostratigraphic Evidence of Cellular andTissue-Level Phylogenetic Dissociation"
🧪
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
"Atavistic Genetic Expression Dissociation (AGED) DuringAging: Meta-Phylostratigraphic Evidence of Cellular andTissue-Level Phylogenetic Dissociation"
🧪
Final version is out:
authors.elsevier.com/c/1mEoa5bD-s...
"Neural cellular automata: Applications to biology and beyond classical AI"
@bhartl.bsky.social
Léo Pio-Lopez
authors.elsevier.com/c/1mEoa5bD-s...
"Neural cellular automata: Applications to biology and beyond classical AI"
@bhartl.bsky.social
Léo Pio-Lopez
authors.elsevier.com
December 9, 2025 at 1:41 AM
Final version is out:
authors.elsevier.com/c/1mEoa5bD-s...
"Neural cellular automata: Applications to biology and beyond classical AI"
@bhartl.bsky.social
Léo Pio-Lopez
authors.elsevier.com/c/1mEoa5bD-s...
"Neural cellular automata: Applications to biology and beyond classical AI"
@bhartl.bsky.social
Léo Pio-Lopez
December 7, 2025 at 5:32 PM
New preprint - Thomas Pollak (substack.com/@drtompollak), Anjali Bhat, Matt Butler, @rokberlot.bsky.social, Mark J Edwards
osf.io/preprints/ps...
"Have you tried switching it off and on again Mechanisms and therapeutic prospects of resetting homeostatic set points in medicine and neuropsychiatry"
osf.io/preprints/ps...
"Have you tried switching it off and on again Mechanisms and therapeutic prospects of resetting homeostatic set points in medicine and neuropsychiatry"
OSF
osf.io
December 5, 2025 at 1:21 AM
New preprint - Thomas Pollak (substack.com/@drtompollak), Anjali Bhat, Matt Butler, @rokberlot.bsky.social, Mark J Edwards
osf.io/preprints/ps...
"Have you tried switching it off and on again Mechanisms and therapeutic prospects of resetting homeostatic set points in medicine and neuropsychiatry"
osf.io/preprints/ps...
"Have you tried switching it off and on again Mechanisms and therapeutic prospects of resetting homeostatic set points in medicine and neuropsychiatry"
November 16, 2025 at 7:59 PM
November 14, 2025 at 2:01 PM
November 13, 2025 at 3:11 PM
November 12, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Reposted by Mike Levin
"Cognition all the way down". Great to see this fine new paper from @robertchisciure.bsky.social & @drmichaellevin.bsky.social out now in Synthese - introducing a new metric to quantify biological intelligence as search efficiency in multidimensional problem spaces link.springer.com/article/10.1...
November 10, 2025 at 2:46 PM
"Cognition all the way down". Great to see this fine new paper from @robertchisciure.bsky.social & @drmichaellevin.bsky.social out now in Synthese - introducing a new metric to quantify biological intelligence as search efficiency in multidimensional problem spaces link.springer.com/article/10.1...
New preprint:
arxiv.org/abs/2510.19976
"Morphological computational capacity of Physarum polycephalum"
Suyash Bajpai, Aviva Lucas-DeMott, @msahsorin.bsky.social, Philip Kurian
arxiv.org/abs/2510.19976
"Morphological computational capacity of Physarum polycephalum"
Suyash Bajpai, Aviva Lucas-DeMott, @msahsorin.bsky.social, Philip Kurian
Morphological computational capacity of Physarum polycephalum
While computational capacity limits of the universe and carbon-based life have been estimated, a stricter bound for aneural organisms has not been established. Physarum polycephalum, a unicellular, mu...
arxiv.org
November 10, 2025 at 2:16 PM
New preprint:
arxiv.org/abs/2510.19976
"Morphological computational capacity of Physarum polycephalum"
Suyash Bajpai, Aviva Lucas-DeMott, @msahsorin.bsky.social, Philip Kurian
arxiv.org/abs/2510.19976
"Morphological computational capacity of Physarum polycephalum"
Suyash Bajpai, Aviva Lucas-DeMott, @msahsorin.bsky.social, Philip Kurian
new paper with @robertchisciure.bsky.social
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
"Cognition all the way down 2.0: neuroscience beyond neurons in the diverse intelligence era"
🧪
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
"Cognition all the way down 2.0: neuroscience beyond neurons in the diverse intelligence era"
🧪
Cognition all the way down 2.0: neuroscience beyond neurons in the diverse intelligence era - Synthese
This paper formalizes biological intelligence as search efficiency in multi-scale problem spaces, aiming to resolve epistemic deadlocks in the basal “cognition wars” unfolding in the Diverse Intellige...
link.springer.com
November 7, 2025 at 12:31 AM
new paper with @robertchisciure.bsky.social
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
"Cognition all the way down 2.0: neuroscience beyond neurons in the diverse intelligence era"
🧪
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
"Cognition all the way down 2.0: neuroscience beyond neurons in the diverse intelligence era"
🧪
New paper:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
"New insights in the gut–brain axis: the role of bioelectrical microbiome"
Juan Lombardo-Hernandez, Jesús Mansilla-Guardiola, Stefano Geuna, Michael Levin, Celia Herrera-Rincon
#bioelectricity #microbiome
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
"New insights in the gut–brain axis: the role of bioelectrical microbiome"
Juan Lombardo-Hernandez, Jesús Mansilla-Guardiola, Stefano Geuna, Michael Levin, Celia Herrera-Rincon
#bioelectricity #microbiome
New insights in the gut–brain axis: the role of bioelectrical microbiome
The gut–brain axis describes the complex, bidirectional communication network connecting the central nervous system, the enteric nervous system, and t…
www.sciencedirect.com
October 22, 2025 at 11:37 PM
New paper:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
"New insights in the gut–brain axis: the role of bioelectrical microbiome"
Juan Lombardo-Hernandez, Jesús Mansilla-Guardiola, Stefano Geuna, Michael Levin, Celia Herrera-Rincon
#bioelectricity #microbiome
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
"New insights in the gut–brain axis: the role of bioelectrical microbiome"
Juan Lombardo-Hernandez, Jesús Mansilla-Guardiola, Stefano Geuna, Michael Levin, Celia Herrera-Rincon
#bioelectricity #microbiome
Official version is out - aging as loss of goal-directedness:
advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
@bhartl.bsky.social
Léo Pio-Lopez
advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
@bhartl.bsky.social
Léo Pio-Lopez
Aging as a Loss of Goal‐Directedness: An Evolutionary Simulation and Analysis Unifying Regeneration with Anatomical Rejuvenation
You have to enable JavaScript in your browser's settings in order to use the eReader.
advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 15, 2025 at 10:46 PM
Official version is out - aging as loss of goal-directedness:
advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
@bhartl.bsky.social
Léo Pio-Lopez
advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
@bhartl.bsky.social
Léo Pio-Lopez
Reposted by Mike Levin
New paper dropped!
Led by @thosvarley.bsky.social and Pai Vaibhav, we show that flows of information within a #xenobot resemble flows of information observed in adult human brains.
Thomas provides caveats and context below.
w/ @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, Caitlin Grasso, & Jeantine Lunshof.
Led by @thosvarley.bsky.social and Pai Vaibhav, we show that flows of information within a #xenobot resemble flows of information observed in adult human brains.
Thomas provides caveats and context below.
w/ @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, Caitlin Grasso, & Jeantine Lunshof.
October 12, 2025 at 12:52 PM
New paper dropped!
Led by @thosvarley.bsky.social and Pai Vaibhav, we show that flows of information within a #xenobot resemble flows of information observed in adult human brains.
Thomas provides caveats and context below.
w/ @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, Caitlin Grasso, & Jeantine Lunshof.
Led by @thosvarley.bsky.social and Pai Vaibhav, we show that flows of information within a #xenobot resemble flows of information observed in adult human brains.
Thomas provides caveats and context below.
w/ @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, Caitlin Grasso, & Jeantine Lunshof.
Reposted by Mike Levin
For those interested in our growing body of work on "polycomputation", here's my attempt to summarize it in 40 minutes:
youtu.be/XnObbF2FkE4?...
youtu.be/XnObbF2FkE4?...
Computational granular metamaterials (CGMMs)
YouTube video by Josh Bongard
youtu.be
October 9, 2025 at 4:33 PM
For those interested in our growing body of work on "polycomputation", here's my attempt to summarize it in 40 minutes:
youtu.be/XnObbF2FkE4?...
youtu.be/XnObbF2FkE4?...
Here's a talk that's quite different from ones I've given before, although it has connections to everything I often talk about, presented at #alife2025:
thoughtforms.life/meet-a-new-s...
(downloadable slides link there too). 🧪
thoughtforms.life/meet-a-new-s...
(downloadable slides link there too). 🧪
Forms of life, forms of mind | Dr. Michael Levin | Meet a new synthetic colleague: robot science as a translation tool between diverse intelligences
A video, and downloadable slides, of a presentation I gave on robot science and Xenobots at the 2025 Artificial Life meeting.
thoughtforms.life
October 11, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Here's a talk that's quite different from ones I've given before, although it has connections to everything I often talk about, presented at #alife2025:
thoughtforms.life/meet-a-new-s...
(downloadable slides link there too). 🧪
thoughtforms.life/meet-a-new-s...
(downloadable slides link there too). 🧪
Reposted by Mike Levin
Thanks for hosting us Foresight Institute!
(w/ @tarinz.bsky.social and @drmichaellevin.bsky.social)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCq2...
(w/ @tarinz.bsky.social and @drmichaellevin.bsky.social)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCq2...
Tarin Ziyaee, Mike Levin and Josh Bongard | Embodied Natural Intelligence VS Embodied AI
YouTube video by Foresight Institute
www.youtube.com
September 29, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Thanks for hosting us Foresight Institute!
(w/ @tarinz.bsky.social and @drmichaellevin.bsky.social)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCq2...
(w/ @tarinz.bsky.social and @drmichaellevin.bsky.social)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCq2...
New paper: Santosh Manicka
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
"Field-mediated bioelectric basis of morphogenetic prepatterning"
#morphogenesis #bioelectricity #fields
🧪
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
"Field-mediated bioelectric basis of morphogenetic prepatterning"
#morphogenesis #bioelectricity #fields
🧪
Field-mediated bioelectric basis of morphogenetic prepatterning
The endogenous electric field of a simplified bioelectric network model of an embryo
facilitates the autonomous formation of voltage patterns. Transient exogenous electric
fields can leverage this pro...
www.cell.com
September 29, 2025 at 3:07 PM
New paper: Santosh Manicka
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
"Field-mediated bioelectric basis of morphogenetic prepatterning"
#morphogenesis #bioelectricity #fields
🧪
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
"Field-mediated bioelectric basis of morphogenetic prepatterning"
#morphogenesis #bioelectricity #fields
🧪
New paper!
www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...
"Temporal depth in a coherent self and in depersonalization: theoretical model"
@lancelotdacosta.bsky.social
@tolchinsky.bsky.social
Chris Fields
Daniel Friedman
Rachael Murphy
David Pincus
www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...
"Temporal depth in a coherent self and in depersonalization: theoretical model"
@lancelotdacosta.bsky.social
@tolchinsky.bsky.social
Chris Fields
Daniel Friedman
Rachael Murphy
David Pincus
Frontiers | Temporal depth in a coherent self and in depersonalization: theoretical model
Multiple theoretical models of dissociative experiences have been formulated over the last century. These theories are clinically useful; however, it remains...
www.frontiersin.org
September 18, 2025 at 7:34 PM
New paper!
www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...
"Temporal depth in a coherent self and in depersonalization: theoretical model"
@lancelotdacosta.bsky.social
@tolchinsky.bsky.social
Chris Fields
Daniel Friedman
Rachael Murphy
David Pincus
www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...
"Temporal depth in a coherent self and in depersonalization: theoretical model"
@lancelotdacosta.bsky.social
@tolchinsky.bsky.social
Chris Fields
Daniel Friedman
Rachael Murphy
David Pincus
New #preprint - @bhartl.bsky.social , Léo Pio-Lopez
arxiv.org/abs/2509.11131
"Neural cellular automata: applications to biology and beyond classical AI"
arxiv.org/abs/2509.11131
"Neural cellular automata: applications to biology and beyond classical AI"
Neural cellular automata: applications to biology and beyond classical AI
Neural Cellular Automata (NCA) represent a powerful framework for modeling biological self-organization, extending classical rule-based systems with trainable, differentiable (or evolvable) update rul...
arxiv.org
September 16, 2025 at 11:40 AM
New #preprint - @bhartl.bsky.social , Léo Pio-Lopez
arxiv.org/abs/2509.11131
"Neural cellular automata: applications to biology and beyond classical AI"
arxiv.org/abs/2509.11131
"Neural cellular automata: applications to biology and beyond classical AI"