Why the next revolution in biology will be written in voltage, not just DNA
Introduction – Beyond Genes and Brains
When the evolutionary geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky declared that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,” he was pointing to the power of a unifying explanation. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Fifty years later, developmental biologist Michael Levin and a growing cadre of collaborators are mounting a similar unification project—one that reframes life itself as an information science rooted in bioelectricity. Their thesis is audacious: goal‑directed intelligence is not a late evolutionary luxury confined to brains but a spectrum of problem‑solving capacities that pervades living matter, from genetic circuits to whole organisms and even synthetic life forms.
The 75‑minute talk transcribed above is a whirlwind tour of that idea. In what follows, we expand it into a narrative fit for a long‑form feature: spelling out the evidence, adding historical context, and exploring why this paradigm could transform regenerative medicine, evolutionary theory, AI ethics, and our very definition of mind.
1. The Quest for a New Unifying Principle
1.1 From Lightning to Wi‑Fi: Lessons of Electromagnetism
Before James Clerk Maxwell unified electricity, magnetism, and light, sparks, lodestones, and rainbows seemed unrelated. Once the spectrum was revealed, humanity developed radio, radar, MRI, Wi‑Fi, and more. Levin argues that a comparable synthesis now beckons in biology: seeing cells, tissues, organs, and even entire organisms as cognitive agents linked by bioelectric networks.
1.2 Cognition All the Way Down
Traditional textbooks reserve words like memory, decision, and goal for creatures with nervous systems. Yet bacterial biofilms coordinate colony‑wide behaviors using ion flows; plant roots make foraging choices; and embryonic tissues remodel themselves after massive perturbations. The project dubbed “Diverse Intelligence” asks: what if these are not metaphors but literal descriptions of distributed minds operating on unfamiliar time‑scales and in unfamiliar spaces?
2. Bioelectricity – The Hidden Language of Cells
2.1 What Are Bioelectric Circuits?
Every cell maintains a membrane voltage using ion channels and pumps. Gap junctions—protein tubes connecting neighbors—let voltage patterns propagate, forming living equivalents of neural networks long before neurons evolved. These patterns can be visualized with voltage‑sensitive dyes or genetically encoded reporters; Levin’s team routinely films embryos flickering like city skylines at night.
2.2 Tools of the Trade
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Voltage imaging reveals pre‑patterns such as the “electric face,” a ghostly map that predicts where eyes, mouth, and nose will emerge in a frog embryo, hours before gene expression marks them. researchgate.net
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Optogenetics & ion‑channel mRNA injection allow researchers to write new voltage states, essentially re‑programming tissue goals without editing the genome.
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Computational modeling treats bioelectric networks as dynamical systems with attractor states—memories of target anatomies.
These tools turn development into an executable program whose code is physiological, not (only) genetic.
3. Goal‑Directed Morphogenesis: Evidence from the Animal Kingdom
3.1 Axolotl Limb Regeneration – Knowing When to Stop
Axolotls will regrow a perfectly proportioned limb after amputation. The miracle is not just growth but restraint: cells know when the structure has matched the internal set‑point and then cease proliferation.
3.2 Picasso Tadpoles – Facial Organs on the Move
Levin’s lab scrambled the electrical pre‑pattern in frog embryos, producing “Picasso tadpoles” with eyes on their back, jaws askew, and nostrils adrift. By the time metamorphosis finished, the animals wore almost normal frog faces—organs had navigated novel, unprogrammed paths to find their destinations. phys.org
3.3 Tail‑to‑Limb Conversion – Global Plans Override Local Identity
Grafting a tail tip onto a salamander’s flank does not yield a second tail; over days it remodels into a leg, because the host’s global anatomical blueprint demands a limb in that position. Local cell “opinions” are subordinated to collective goals.
4. Rewriting Anatomical Memory: Planarian Case Studies
4.1 Two‑Headed Flatworms on Demand
Planarian flatworms normally regenerate one head and one tail. By transiently altering gap‑junction-mediated voltages, researchers created worms that remember they should have two heads. Even after months, every subsequent amputation yields another two‑headed animal—proof that the body stores durable, editable pattern memories outside DNA. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
4.2 Learning to Defuse Barium
Expose planaria to barium chloride and their heads literally explode—the ion blocker devastates neural tissue. Astonishingly, within a week they regenerate new heads that are barium‑proof. Transcriptomics show only a handful of gene changes: the organism solved a novel physiological stress by rewriting ion‑handling algorithms rather than its genome. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.govfrontiersin.org
5. Plasticity and Ingenuity in Embryos and Organs
5.1 Giant‑Cell Kidney Tubules
In polyploid salamander embryos, renal tubules keep the same diameter even when cell size triples. The system adapts by using fewer, larger cells—or, when necessary, a single cell that rolls into a torus—illustrating top‑down control over molecular mechanisms.
5.2 Deer Antler “Trophic Memory”
Field biologists documented red deer whose antlers remember past injuries: a cut that pierces bone yields an ectopic tine at the exact location in antlers regrown years later. How do cells in the pedicle encode a 3‑D scar map and retrieve it seasonally? The answer likely resides in long‑term bioelectric or epigenetic memory circuits yet to be deciphered.
6. Synthetic Life Forms: Xenobots and Anthrobots
6.1 Xenobots – Programmable Frog‑Cell Robots
In 2020 Tufts and Vermont researchers used an evolutionary algorithm to design millimeter‑scale “xenobots” made of frog skin and cardiac cells. In 2021 they stunned the world again: xenobots can kinematically self‑replicate by corralling loose cells into daughter bots—an entirely new mode of reproduction. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.govnow.tufts.edu
Characteristics
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Self‑assembly from dissociated cells
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Locomotion via coordinated cilia
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Task performance (e.g., collecting debris)
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Spontaneous reproduction in seawaterlike media
6.2 Anthrobots – Human‑Cell Biobots with Healing Skills
Late 2023 saw the debut of “anthrobots,” multicellular spheroids built from adult human tracheal cells. They glide across plastic, aggregate into swarms, and, when placed on wounded neuronal cultures, accelerate tissue repair—despite having no evolutionary history of interacting with brain cells. onlinelibrary.wiley.comwyss.harvard.eduscientificamerican.com
Together, xenobots and anthrobots demolish two dogmas: that genotype rigidly specifies morphology, and that genuinely novel behaviors require genetic engineering. Instead, cells possess latent competencies unleashed by new contexts.
7. An Evolutionary “Competency Ratchet”
If even individual cells solve problems, then natural selection can outsource labor: rather than encoding every detail, genomes can rely on the agential material to self‑correct. Computer simulations show that the more autonomy parts have, the easier it is for evolution to step up complexity—an iterative ratchet of morphological and cognitive sophistication.
8. Implications
8.1 Regenerative Medicine
Writing pattern memories could let doctors regrow limbs or organs without stem‑cell transplants—just prompt tissues with the right voltage software. New Yorker journalist Matthew Hutson dubbed it “persuading the body to regenerate its limbs.” newyorker.com
8.2 Oncology as Electrophysiological Schism
Cancer may represent cells that have “defected” from the body’s bioelectric consensus. Re‑establishing connectivity via gap‑junction drugs has re‑normalized tumors in frogs and human organoids.
8.3 Ethics for a World of Diverse Minds
When a cluster of human lung cells can move, decide, and heal, where do we draw moral circles? Levin suggests replacing anthropocentric checklists with an interaction‑protocol ethic: judge by capacities and contexts, not origin stories.
8.4 Bio‑Inspired Artificial Intelligence
The brain may have borrowed its algorithms from developmental bioelectricity. Understanding how tissues compute could inspire new AI architectures that self‑repair and self‑evolve without massive data sets.
9. Toward a New Biology of Information
The emerging picture is dizzying yet coherent:
| Classical View | Bioelectric View |
|---|---|
| DNA is the blueprint | DNA is a parts list; voltage is the blueprint |
| Cells are biochemical machines | Cells are problem‑solving agents |
| Intelligence requires neurons | Cognition is scale‑free from genes to swarms |
| Evolution designs everything | Evolution delegates to competent tissues |
Conclusion – Switching On the Future
Maxwell’s equations unlocked the electromagnetic spectrum; their practical fruits now saturate modern life. Cracking the bioelectric code could be equally transformative, giving us regenerative therapies, living computers, and a deeper harmony between biotechnology and ethics.
The evidence reviewed here—two‑headed worms with rewritable memories, Picasso tadpoles that sculpt their own faces, salamanders that pick molecular tools on the fly, xenobots that invent reproduction, and anthrobots that heal—forces a reckoning. Life is not a hierarchy of passive matter animated by top‑down genetic commands; it is a nested society of electrically chatting agents forever negotiating shape and purpose.
Our next task is twofold:
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Basic science: Map the bioelectric states that specify every organ and decode the algorithms cells use to navigate morphological space.
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Applied ethics: Craft governance frameworks that respect emergent intelligences—whether silicon, carbon, or cyborg hybrids—by the richness of their goals, not the familiarity of their faces.
If we rise to that challenge, future historians may say that nothing in biology, medicine, or artificial intelligence made sense until we learned to listen to—and speak—the language of living electricity.
