Mike Levin

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

8.6K followers1.1K following330 posts

Mike Levin reposted

Milton
@miltonllera.bsky.social

Our work on adapting NCAs towards generating controlled morphological changes is now in preprint!

Mike Levin@drmichaellevin.bsky.social

new #preprint: t.co/eE1qqGSflK Ben Hartl explains: In 1917, D'Arcy Thompson drew Cartesian grids around different anatomical shapes & showed that deforming the grid could change one species' shape into that of another. We find that "reusable regulatory handles control phenotypic variation" in NCAs

t.cohttps://arxiv.org/abs/2609.29755
Mike Levin
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social

New #preprint! Led by Elena Sergeeva. @pigozzife.bsky.social @thosvarley.bsky.social Colin J. Comerci Zhe Zhao Robert Brucker Gürol M. Süel @doctorjosh.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... "Living multicellular systems induce decodable spatial patterns in bacterial collectives"🧪

biorxiv.orgLiving multicellular systems induce decodable spatial patterns in bacterial collectivesLiving systems continuously modify their environments through chemical, mechanical, metabolic and bioelectrical activity. Whether a presence of a multicellular system can be encoded into the emergent ...
Mike Levin
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social

New #preprint: led by @drpatricke.bsky.social An important step in our efforts to create tools for the community to accelerate discovery in diverse intelligence as relates to biomedicine and beyond: biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... "A platform for automated training of mammalian cell physiology"

biorxiv.orgA platform for automated training of mammalian cell physiologyControlling cell physiology is difficult, not only because of cells' complexity, but also their capacity for real-time adaptation to interventions, leading to challenges such as drug resistance and transgene silencing. Accumulating evidence suggests that this adaptivity resembles classical forms of learning defined in behavioral science. However, a lack of appropriate platforms has led to gaps in our understanding of cells' capacity for adaptive problem-solving in physiological and transcriptional space. Here, we present a device, the Cell Trainer, capable of performing a wide variety of automated training experiments on non-neural mammalian cells, using timed drug pulses as the stimulus, and a mobile fluorescence microscope to capture images of responses, across replicate cultures. The Cell Trainer can operate in either an open-loop (feedforward) or closed-loop (feedback-controlled) mode, and our image analysis pipeline can report the behaviors of individual cells throughout each experiment and quantify population heterogeneity. We showcase the ability of the Cell Trainer to execute experimental protocols and perform single-cell analyses in both modes. We first demonstrate with a feedforward experiment in which myoblasts are repeatedly pulsed with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and their discrete calcium responses are analyzed, revealing sensitization-like dynamics. Next, we demonstrate a feedback control scheme wherein the fluorescence of a pH/voltage reporter in kidney cells is maintained below a threshold level with controlled pulses of acid. To accelerate research in the field of cell training, learning, and memory, we are openly sharing the Cell Trainer schematics and software with the research community. This platform provides a flexible tool for studying how cellular physiological states can be shaped by patterned stimulation and feedback control through approaches that work with the native adaptive competencies of cells. ### Competing Interest Statement This research was partially funded at Tufts under a Sponsored Research Agreement with Astonishing Labs. M.L. is a co-founder and shareholder of Astonishing Labs. Astonishing Labs has certain rights to any inventions associated with this research. Templeton World Charity Foundation, https://ror.org/00x0z1472 John Templeton Foundation, https://ror.org/035tnyy05, 62212 Astonishing Labs
Mike Levin
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social

#preprint, two very bright and motivated high-school students: Nikhil Dev and Angelina Nguyen www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... "Trained Planaria Retain Memories Through Head Regeneration: A Model System for Insights into Non-Neural Memory and Neurodegenerative Diseases"

biorxiv.orgTrained Planaria Retain Memories Through Head Regeneration: A Model System for Insights into Non-Neural Memory and Neurodegenerative DiseasesPlanaria exhibit remarkable regenerative ability, including the capacity to regrow complete heads and brains after decapitation. Here, we re-investigated whether regenerated planaria can preserve lear...
Mike Levin
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social

new #preprint @pigozzife.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2607.28250 Once you get replicators, Darwinian evolution can happen. What's happening *before* replicators arise? "Causal Architecture Dynamics Prior to Arrival of Self-replicators in a Model of Catalytic Networks Relevant to Origin-of-Life"

arxiv.orgCausal Architecture Dynamics Prior to Arrival of Self-replicators in a Model of Catalytic Networks Relevant to Origin-of-LifeAgents that exert causal power in the world are thought to be the product of selection among diverse replicators; what is the causal structure of a medium before replicators appear, and evolution take...
Mike Levin
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social

New #preprint: @steffikapsetaki.bsky.social , Tomer Landsberger www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Do individual planaria exposed to the same stressor find the same, or different, transcriptional solutions to that problem? 🧪

biorxiv.orgTranscriptional Profiling of Planarian Regeneration Habituating to Physiological Stressor Reveals Individual and Collective DynamicsExposure to the potassium channel blocker barium chloride (BaCl₂) causes head degeneration in Dugesia japonica flatworms, followed by regeneration of BaCl₂-insensitive heads, offering a unique model f...

Mike Levin reposted

Avel Guénin--Carlut
@avel.kairos-research.org

✨✨✨ New paper out in Embodied Intelligence 2025 ✨✨✨ Guénin—Carlut, Avel. 2026. “Development Is (Embodied) Intelligence - Biological Information, Agency, and Contextuality.” IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1343 (1): 012008. doi.org/10.1088/1757.... 1/7

doi.orgDevelopment is (embodied) intelligence - Biological information, agency, and contextualityDevelopment is (embodied) intelligence - Biological information, agency, and contextuality, Guénin—Carlut, Avel

Mike Levin reposted

Thomas F. Varley
@thosvarley.bsky.social

New paper with @doctorjosh.bsky.social, @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, and co-first author Vaibhav Pai. This one is a doozy - in it we show that we can modulate the degree of emergent, multicellular organization in a Xenobot with an exogenous compound (ATP). 1/N www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.orgPurinergic signaling disrupts emergent patterns of multicellular coordination in basal Xenobots.The ability of self-organizing systems to display emergent, adaptive capabilities is a fundamental feature of biological life. Understanding the mechanisms by which cells co-ordinate at the micro-scal...
Mike Levin
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social

Ever wanted to talk to a gene regulatory network? Ever wonder what they could do in a different context, embodiment, space? New preprint - part of our approach for developing ways to talk to cells, organs, and much much weirder agents: @yanbozhang123.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2605.16321 🧪

arxiv.orgLanguage Game: Talking to Non-Human SystemsLanguage carries thought and coordination among humans but rarely reaches further along the spectrum of diverse intelligence. Yet non-neural systems -- from gene regulatory networks and microbial cons...
Mike Levin
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social

Final forms of 3 new papers! #consciousness #selforganization #cognition #economics and more 🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/rsta/article... royalsocietypublishing.org/rsta/article... royalsocietypublishing.org/rsta/article...

royalsocietypublishing.orgBrains and where else? Mapping theories of consciousness to unconventional embodimentsAbstract. It is assumed that a useful theory of consciousness (ToC) will explain why consciousness is associated with brains. However, the findings of evol
Mike Levin
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social

New #preprint, @pigozzife.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2605.06746 "The Causally Emergent Alignment Hypothesis: Causal Emergence Aligns with and Predicts Final Reward in Reinforcement Learning Agents" 🧪

arxiv.orgThe Causally Emergent Alignment Hypothesis: Causal Emergence Aligns with and Predicts Final Reward in Reinforcement Learning AgentsA hallmark of life on Earth is the ability of agents to exert causal power and be drivers of subsequent events. This is key to cognition at all scales. Causal emergence, measuring the degree to which ...
Mike Levin
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social

New #preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2604.01932 "BraiNCA: brain-inspired neural cellular automata and applications to morphogenesis and motor control" @bhartl.bsky.social and Leo Pio-Lopez:

arxiv.orgBraiNCA: brain-inspired neural cellular automata and applications to morphogenesis and motor controlMost of the Neural Cellular Automata (NCAs) defined in the literature have a common theme: they are based on regular grids with a Moore neighborhood (one-hop neighbour). They do not take into account ...
Mike Levin
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social

See the work of our awesome team in Advanced Science: "Engineered Living Systems With Self-Organizing NeuralNetworks: From Anatomy to Behavior and Gene Expression" Haleh Fotowat Laurie O'Neill Leo Pio-Lopez Megan M. Sperry Patrick Erickson Tiffany Lin @tufts.edu now.tufts.edu/2026/03/16/s...

now.tufts.eduScientists Create Novel Organism with Primitive Nervous SystemTiny neurobots made from frog cells exhibit complex movements with simple neural networks

Mike Levin reposted

Alex Fedorec
@ajfedorec.bsky.social

Our special issue "Biology computes: Information processing across biological scales" Editorial - authors.elsevier.com/a/1moUK3si8Q... Contributions from @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, Chris Barnes, Matthias Függer, Thomas Nowak, @angelgm.eurosky.social - www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

sciencedirect.comSeminars in Cell & Developmental Biology | Biology computes: information processing across biological scales | ScienceDirect.com by ElsevierOver half a century ago, in a time of rapid advances in digital computing, Jacob and Monod’s seminal work on the lac operon was destined to be framed as biological computation. But the history of cell...

Mike Levin reposted

The Wyss Institute at Harvard University
@wyssinstitute.bsky.social

Wyss Institute researchers, led by @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, create the first-of-its-kind neurobots, autonomously moving self-organizing biological robots with a nervous system that integrates and functions. @tufts.edu

wyss.harvard.eduToward autonomous self-organizing biological robots with a nervous systemBy Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Biobots, whose growing line of variants started with Xenobots, are fascinating tiny self-powered living robots built exclusively using frog embryonic cells. Originally ...

Mike Levin reposted

Elias Najarro
@najarro.science

Call for papers for 'Artificial Life for Science and Engineering' at ALife 26. We seek work applying ALife concepts and tools to model real-world systems and engineer solutions — and assist scientific discovery through open-ended and curiosity-driven search. Call info: alifeforscience.github.io

Mike Levin
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social

Final version of this paper with Richard Watson is out! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "Machines all the way up and cognition all the way down: Updating the machine metaphor in biology" (quite a bit different than the original preprint at osf.io/preprints/os...).

sciencedirect.comMachines all the way up and cognition all the way down: Updating the machine metaphor in biologyCell and developmental biology (CDB) offer numerous remarkable examples of collective adaptive plasticity, as cells coordinate to implement large-scal…

Mike Levin reposted

Avel Guénin--Carlut
@avel.kairos-research.org

1/6 Excited to share the call for posters & registration for the 2nd XSCAPE Workshop: "Varieties of Externalism" ! 📅 Friday, April 10th, 2026 — Gallery Room, Bramber House, University of Sussex Registration is free but places are limited. 🧵

Mike Levin
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social

New preprint with Giovanni Pezzulo: arxiv.org/abs/2602.08079 Bootstrapping Life-Inspired Machine Intelligence: The Biological Route from Chemistry to Cognition and Creativity

arxiv.orgBootstrapping Life-Inspired Machine Intelligence: The Biological Route from Chemistry to Cognition and CreativityAchieving advanced machine intelligence remains a central challenge in AI research, often approached through scaling neural architectures and generative models. However, biological systems offer a bro...
Mike Levin
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social

New preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2601.14096 @chrisfields38.bsky.social @bhartl.bsky.social Leo Pio-Lopez "Remapping and navigation of an embedding space via error minimization: a fundamental organizational principle of cognition in natural and artificial systems" 🧪

arxiv.orgRemapping and navigation of an embedding space via error minimization: a fundamental organizational principle of cognition in natural and artificial systemsThe emerging field of diverse intelligence seeks an integrated view of problem-solving in agents of very different provenance, composition, and substrates. From subcellular chemical networks to swarms...