Levinate, Project Sileca, Nasal Miracle Protection Cure, Lab Grown Spinal Chords, Gold Metal Success with "Play" and the New Age of Biology
We are multi-scale beings, a society of cells, and at the same time a cell in a larger system — Michael Levin
I have always had a fascination with the movie Chasing the Kidney Stone, and I would love to take you on a metaphorical journey through my understanding of some of Michael Levin’s amazing work, represented in the style of a short story. So let’s jump in and start at the beginning…
The year is 2026, and we have finally taken the leap and decided it is more interesting to go sailing within. The biological clocks are ringing, and our first dock is behind the teeth, along a hard, curved wall of enamel. The air feels warm and enclosed, a transition zone between the outside world and the interior. The light, however, where is that coming from? When our mouths are closed, do we expect to see anything? Total darkness, or is it the light generated by our own bioelectrical field? After making sure the boat was properly docked, the protagonists took the liberty of ordering a water latte from the big 60 % well before taking the elevator past the third eye and into the crown.
People usually explain the crown as this big lump of matter and neurons called the brain, and it is often the main character in most science movies. The story’s protagonists, Sofia and Curt, are excited to finally see what all the fuzz is about, and to check whether they could turn off the light of cognition with a switch in the crown. Both were sure, since they had been raised as materialists, but that was when they met the Kim’s, a seemingly “dumb” family of bacteria living in the elevator shaft. They were talking nonstop without talking, but Sofia, with her wisdom, clearly could sense them. Their language was not like any other language. It seemed like they were operating in more like 2D, and also a bit through sound. Becoming less and less sure of their long-held beliefs, Sofia and Curt decided to climb up to the left side of the brain, where they had a pretty good feeling everything was controlled.
They tried to turn the switch off, but nothing happened. They tried a few other places too, same thing happened. Curt remembered that before they went on this journey they got some advice about goal setting being their light in shining armor. So if something did not behave the way they wanted, they could try to give it a new goal, and so they did. They asked if the left brain “could make a bridge to where the light cone might be, and regenerate a path through the hidden diamonds.” The left neurons were not sure if they could do that, but they had heard from outside news that some frogs were able to regrow after being cut in half, so they said, hey, let’s give it a try. With a new goal and a quick manifestation, the bridge appeared. Sofia and Curt opened it, and in that second when they passed the door a beautiful sound awakened. It felt like it made both hemispheres resonate in perfect harmony. 1 + 1 + 2. Eager, they went on.
The right side was different. It felt bigger, more spacious and more alive. There was also a river there that looked almost like a cognitive glue, and in the middle, a switch, guarded by two pyramid neurons. The neurons asked why they wanted to try the switch. Sofia told them it was because they thought it would finally prove that the switch was not working on either side, in fact it was not even the right place to look, and then everything could circulate out in the open. Meaning: neuron or not, human or not, it does not matter. The pyramid neurons, with a smile on their faces, said they were both welcome to try and that they would see them on the other side. Sofia and Curt, excited to get to the other side, turned the switch again, but this time were returned in the exact same spot. Hmmm. They looked at each other. The pyramid neurons said maybe the cognition glue river goes everywhere, and that you guys should go back to the dock and travel to Mrs. Heart and Mr. Gut, and not to forget the Fascia Tribe and Aunt Collagen running the electrical fabric all the way back in Cell Land.
Curt and Sofia had a lovely trip visiting the Fascia Tribe, learning all about the power that makes cells fire like fireworks. It was beyond cool. The next stop was Mrs. Heart. The door was big and it was pumping plasma out in the open. The strange thing was that there was a big black box next to the door, which seemed to be communicating like the rest of the organs. Nothing really surprised them anymore, until they saw a couple of incoming swarms coming from the outside to help align the internal compass with the weather forecast. The report came in: the intelligence of Earth is resonating at 7.82 today, the sun is solar flaring, so Mrs. Heart can you please drop the rate, ask for a bioelectrical RNA software upgrade, and tell Mr. Gut that it is time again “we need some food so we don’t starve.” Mrs. Heart laughed. Sofia and Curt laughed. What an orchestra. Everybody helping each other out. Everybody with their own signal, tone, goal, and intelligence. The intelligence might be diverse, but it is still intelligence, for the grand collective.
Sofia and Curt looked at each other. Maybe the answer had always been hiding within. The source is everywhere, that is the secret thing?
Technology
Are you going with rent-controlled Ai or welcoming them to move in? Are you giving out the front-door key or just the code to the building floor? These days it seems like people are skipping dating and going all in, giving away the key, their credit card (or Lobster cash), and handing over their intelligence for a longer dinner. Sampath at the Cisco Summit was talking specifically about the rent/buy relationship dynamics from a business perspective. If you are implementing rented code/LLMs, that is basically just a feature request, not a product. Or are you, in fact, incubating and nurturing your own model from the inside? Feeding it enterprise data and doing your reinforcement learning yourself? That could be what leads to success or failure.
A lot of businesses are naturally afraid to marry and fully welcome the “AI” in. Because God knows what they will end up being able to do. For sure, they should not be allowed to do any human surveillance (for that you might need to go to the Pentagon). This week, Anthropic not only had an open battle about that subject, but they also released a cybersecurity version. Helping people and businesses defend themselves against the new wave of hackers.
From Anthropic to Microsoft, a super cool new invention for the history books. Project Silica, a research project published in Nature, is able to store information for 10 000 years on a glass-based data storage system. Kind of like having your own mini information seed vault, perfectly designed to fit into a glass pocket. The only problem might be the noise bottleneck. We optimize for more and more information, but we forget that the information itself is not the most important thing, it is what we choose to do with it.
Last, two notes on energy. Not an electrical chip, but an electrical ship. Australia has launched the world’s biggest EV ship ever made, equal to 487 teslas. It looks pretty awesome! Also FervoEnergy sets a new heating record in largest geothermal project, routing a path to one of the most interesting energy sources.
Bioelectricity is the software that runs on the genetic hardware — Michael Levin
Health
The fire is put to rest for four new years, and the Olympics are over for now. The winner this year, Norway. With 42 medals (if you include the one Norwegian who moved to Team Brazil.) The success factor? It seems to be work that feels like play, and maybe also a bit about the cold surroundings.
As with all winter seasons, there comes a time for illness, and while we might be past the peak this winter, it is still interesting to look toward future winters. A new nasal spray tested on mice (read about what we think about mice testing here) is showing promising results for several infections, allergens, viruses and bacteria. At the same time, FDA is dropping their two-study requirement. The reason is to enable treatments and medicines to reach the shelves faster.
With all these amazing new molecular and new protein Ai advancements (now down to one testing round to find a solution for a new protein), we certainly need faster processes. But, we all remember COVID, so we need to make sure we have both maximum speed and equally high quality. In the meantime, we go fully holistic, and treating ourselves to a preventative sauna. The science is clear, the Scandinavians even have a few more secrets.
Last on health, a lab grown human spinal cord, and wait for it: they got there through fast-moving, dancing molecules. If that is not the most beautiful “Levin intelligence” proof, I don’t know what is. It also makes me want to update my goals: more work that feels like play, more sauna, and more dance.
Science
Are we entering the Big Think Biology era, or did we ever really leave? Quanta Magazine also speaks to this topic this week, and gives us a peek into the “the Biophysical World Inside a Jam-Packed Cell.” It looks like the cells are a lot more packed than we originally thought, and a hell of a lot smarter too. They keep their interior at a precise “just-right” material state, and finding ways to understand, and communicate how to “state-change” may be as important as changing genes. While at the same time seeing the cell and body in a micro macro level perspective as a key representative of the society and even in the galactic collective. Rousseau and Levin on a call would have been something.
One of the topics that would have been fun to explore would be that of bioelectricity, which is basically the idea that we are “water machines running on light," and that light = electricity. The way cells communicate is through electricity, and radiating outside our skin, electromagnetic fields. So the “halo” above Jesus’ crown or people seeing “aura fields” might in the end not be that weird? And if you still think that, maybe it is time to read Dan Brown’s Secret of Secrets or our own consciousness theme.
To follow the Secret of Secrets thread a bit, let us go into cognition. Levin said in his podcast with Tim Ferriss that his religion might be something like “super panpsychism.” Meaning that cognition is floating around in these beautiful fields, or like a drone, as Federico Faggin would say. So why do we keep staying with the materialist view? If the field theory is correct, and intelligence, to quote Levin, came a lot earlier than brains or humans did, then intelligence might exist just as much in our blood cells, our gut, or in the trees? The way it talks might be different, but that does not mean it is less intelligent. According to physicists, the beginning of the universe was actually a bit soupy, maybe what Levin would describe as a cognitive glue? It was a “quark plowing through primordial plasma for the first time.” It would not be the first time someone said everything is about the intelligence in the plasma.
Development is the story of cells navigating a space of possible forms toward a preferred outcome — Michael Levin
Did you see…? this awesome video about how incredible your body truly is? What it looks like when it repairs and builds new cells?
Did you think…? ingesting Fibonacci patterns would make time loop on itself? Hihi. 1,1,2,3,5,8,13…
Did you celebrate the new year…? the Year of the Fire Horse? The Chinese government certainly did, with robots doing all kinds of crazy things and kung fu.
Did you try…? Grok 4.2? Elon is, as always, on the lookout for the answer to the universe, and now he’s decided to call his models and URLs that too. Also, it appears that his space datacenter mission seems to have some ripples and pollution in the skies. If you’re still new to the space data center concept, Tomaz wrote an excellent piece on how to do it.
Did you read…? shadow work from Tetragrammaton? The more shadow you dare to go within, the more magic and direct influence you are given to begin with.
Did you hear the sound…? of the new Gemini music model? Eight languages in total. Maybe we can get more of that “we are the world” content.
Did you Levinate…? not yet? Here are some more resources on Michael Levin: One of his papers on Cognition, the Tim Ferris Podcast and a short video of his view on Ai.
Healing and regeneration are not about forcing chemistry, they are about resetting the system’s memory of what it should be — Michael Levin
