Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · 1d

My friend and colleague @drmichaellevin.bsky.social delivering his @alife2025.bsky.social keynote address...

Remotely?

In person?

...?

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · 1d

Lab member Nate Gaylinn describing evolutionary ramps and ratchets @alife2025.bsky.social...

(Paper coming soon...)

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · 9d

Thanks for hosting us Foresight Institute!

(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

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · Jul 11

#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.

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · Jul 10

Just arrived at the UN's #AIForGood Symposium in Geneva.

Was in time to catch Daniela Rus' talk on AI Governance; I'll be speaking about #xenobots tomorrow.

(Joint work w/ Doug Blackiston, @samkriegman.com & @drmichaellevin.bsky.social).

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · Jul 7

Looking forward to speaking at the first Biohybrid Robotics Conference tomorrow!

biohybrid-robotics.com

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · Jun 14

Lab alumnus @samkriegman.com just won a very prestigious NSF CAREER Award.

Congratulations Sam!!

www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/...

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Reposted by Josh Bongard

Chris Adami @chrisadami.bsky.social · May 26

Reminder that my book "Evolution of Biological Information", which was pandemically overpriced by @princetonupress.bsky.social, is 50% off until May 31, with the checkout code "BLOOM50". That's a reasonable price. press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

The Evolution of Biological Information

Why information is the unifying principle that allows us to understand the evolution of complexity in nature

press.princeton.edu

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · May 20

So proud of *Dr.* Caitlin Grasso (www.linkedin.com/in/caitlin-g...).

She empowered herself by discovering how to empower machines (bit.ly/3Wwloi4).

Congratulations again Caitlin.

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · May 19

Paging @thosvarley.bsky.social

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Reposted by Josh Bongard

Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · May 15

Can AI drive a shift toward systems that mimic the brain? Can we develop intelligent matter that learns, adapts, and processes information? Check this @nature.com paper @drmichaellevin.bsky.social @doctorjosh.bsky.social ris.utwente.nl/ws/portalfil...

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · May 7

Sorry Hiroki! Their loss.

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Reposted by Josh Bongard

Hiroki Sayama @hirokisayama.bsky.social · May 2

Fun time to be in the US academia
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Exclusive: NSF stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones

US science funder also plans to screen grant applications for compliance with ‘agency priorities’.

www.nature.com

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · May 1

The final #robotics lecture: xenobots.

youtu.be/wAEdX1l259k?...

2025 Evolutionary robotics course. Lecture 29. Xenobots.

YouTube video by Josh Bongard

youtu.be

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · Apr 29

Today's lecture:

soft robots and differentiable robots.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHa_...

2025 Evolutionary robotics course. Lecture 28. Soft robotics.

YouTube video by Josh Bongard

www.youtube.com

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · Apr 24

Today's robotics lecture:

evolving bodies and brains.

youtu.be/xYL1Dfu0Odo

2025 Evolutionary robotics course. Lecture 26. Evolving bodies & brains.

YouTube video by Josh Bongard

youtu.be

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · Apr 23

Snowflake robotics.

Presented at the 2025 Embodied Intelligence Conference.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbAq...

Josh Bongard: SNOWFLAKE ROBOTICS

YouTube video by AgriFoRwArdS CDT YouTube Channel

www.youtube.com

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · Apr 22

Today's #robotics lecture:

the evolution of communication.

[Fun stuff starts at 27m]

youtu.be/JxQTaXSTiqI

2025 Evolutionary robotics course. Lecture 26. Evolution of communication.

YouTube video by Josh Bongard

youtu.be

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · Apr 17

Today's lecture: swarm robotics.

Again: what could possibly go wrong?

youtu.be/R3_QcxO1LO4

2025 Evolutionary robotics course. Lecture 25. Collective intelligence.

YouTube video by Josh Bongard

youtu.be

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · Apr 15

10 co-authors: Doug Blackiston, Hannah Dromiack, Caitlin Grasso, @thosvarley.bsky.social, Doug Moore, Krishna Srinivasan, Olaf Sporns, me, @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, @saraimari.bsky.social.

Special thanks to Sara Imari Walker for keeping all of us focused, for so long.

Great work team!

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · Apr 15

We published a new xenobot-related paper today:

journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

In a nutshell: building xenobots from frog "explants" is good because explants, apparently, come with adaptive potential "built in".

This paper took 6 years and 10 co-authors (see post #2) to reach the light.

Revealing non-trivial information structures in aneural biological tissues via functional connectivity

Author summary A central challenge in understanding several diverse processes in biology, including morphogenesis, wound healing, and development, is learning from empirical data how information is in...

journals.plos.org

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Josh Bongard @doctorjosh.bsky.social · Apr 15

Today's lecture: self-replicating #robots.

What could go possibly go wrong?

youtu.be/IAlGZW4EOnc?...

2025 Evolutionary robotics course. Lecture 24. Self replication.

YouTube video by Josh Bongard

youtu.be

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Reposted by Josh Bongard

Thomas F. Varley @thosvarley.bsky.social · Apr 15

New pre-print just dropped, with @doctorjosh.bsky.social, @alicepatania.bsky.social, and Pedro Mediano.

In it we ask: when an algebraic topologist and an information theorist talk about "higher-order" structure, are they talking about the same thing?

A 🧵1/n

arxiv.org/abs/2504.10140