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Biologist Michael Levin posits that bio-electric fields “, not simply genes, hold the key to limb regeneration. https://youtu.be/VQr9NlWEsPY https://youtu.be/V

by oa335 1y ago

Biologist Michael Levin posits that bio-electric fields “, not simply genes, hold the key to limb regeneration. https://youtu.be/VQr9NlWEsPY https://youtu.be/VQr9NlWEsPY

cyberax 1y ago
This has always seemed like BS. There's just not enough expressiveness in electricity. You can vary the voltage (a bit) and polarity. Maybe the steepness of the voltage gradient. This just is not enough. And we already know at least _some_ of the molecular signalling machinery (the good old Hox genes, for example).
- danwills 1y ago
  I think people often hear 'bioelectric' and think it means electricity (electron flux) but what Levin's work is about is a pattern of voltage gradients (that cells maintain using electrically-non-neutral chemicals) that stores a pattern like a memory (or "target in morphospace" as Levin would say) of what to grow back into when the tissue is damaged. It is about ion transfer between cells that sets up and maintains those patterns of electrochemical gradients. Gap junctions (the cellular pores that facilitate ion transfer) are not unique to neuron cells either, and nor are they even unique to multicellular tissues! It is now thought that this type of intercellular communication evolved in single-celled microorganisms even before the advent of multicellularity (like in biofilms and in quorum-sensing such as what yeasts are known to employ). I totally see what you're saying if you interpret this as electricity like electrons/electromagnetic-fields in a wire with power running through it, but that is really not what Levin's work is about at all.
- TeMPOraL 1y ago
  > You can vary the voltage (a bit) and polarity. Maybe the steepness of the voltage gradient. But that's literally all that you need, isn't it? I understood the whole thing about Levin's bio-electric fields is this: it's a "global" signal that lets cells know where they are in the target structure that's not uniformly symmetric. It's not the full structure description, just lowest-frequency view - head is here, tail is there, etc. Also I thought that was experimentally confirmed.
- agumonkey 1y ago
  maybe the electricity is not the encoding, it's a trigger for some surface gap junctions to alter internal state / logic

by oa335 1y ago

Biologist Michael Levin posits that bio-electric fields “, not simply genes, hold the key to limb regeneration. https://youtu.be/VQr9NlWEsPY https://youtu.be/VQr9NlWEsPY

cyberax 1y ago

This has always seemed like BS. There's just not enough expressiveness in electricity. You can vary the voltage (a bit) and polarity. Maybe the steepness of the voltage gradient. This just is not enough. And we already know at least _some_ of the molecular signalling machinery (the good old Hox genes, for example).

danwills 1y ago
I think people often hear 'bioelectric' and think it means electricity (electron flux) but what Levin's work is about is a pattern of voltage gradients (that cells maintain using electrically-non-neutral chemicals) that stores a pattern like a memory (or "target in morphospace" as Levin would say) of what to grow back into when the tissue is damaged. It is about ion transfer between cells that sets up and maintains those patterns of electrochemical gradients. Gap junctions (the cellular pores that facilitate ion transfer) are not unique to neuron cells either, and nor are they even unique to multicellular tissues! It is now thought that this type of intercellular communication evolved in single-celled microorganisms even before the advent of multicellularity (like in biofilms and in quorum-sensing such as what yeasts are known to employ). I totally see what you're saying if you interpret this as electricity like electrons/electromagnetic-fields in a wire with power running through it, but that is really not what Levin's work is about at all.
TeMPOraL 1y ago
> You can vary the voltage (a bit) and polarity. Maybe the steepness of the voltage gradient. But that's literally all that you need, isn't it? I understood the whole thing about Levin's bio-electric fields is this: it's a "global" signal that lets cells know where they are in the target structure that's not uniformly symmetric. It's not the full structure description, just lowest-frequency view - head is here, tail is there, etc. Also I thought that was experimentally confirmed.
agumonkey 1y ago
maybe the electricity is not the encoding, it's a trigger for some surface gap junctions to alter internal state / logic