New paper, Evgeniya Shmeleva "Manipulation of biological systems by self-defecting and foreign agents" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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"

Causal Architecture Dynamics Prior to Arrival of Self-replicators in a Model of Catalytic Networks Relevant to Origin-of-Life

Agents 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...

arxiv.org

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? 🧪

Transcriptional Profiling of Planarian Regeneration Habituating to Physiological Stressor Reveals Individual and Collective Dynamics

Exposure 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...

biorxiv.org

Final version: @bhartl.bsky.social, Leo Pio-Lopez, Chris Fields www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Remapping and navigation of an embedding space via error minimization: A fundamental organizational principle of cognition in natural and artificial systems

#naturephotography

New #paper: rosa.uniroma1.it/rosa04/organ... Mostly unaltered conversation among some great people on the definitions of life.

✨✨✨ 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

Development is (embodied) intelligence - Biological information, agency, and contextuality

Development is (embodied) intelligence - Biological information, agency, and contextuality, Guénin—Carlut, Avel

doi.org

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of discussing -- more informally and deeply -- on computation, consciousness, multiscalarity, and autonomy, with the ever-hospitable @drmichaellevin.bsky.social , Nicholas Rouleau, and @jaanaru.bsky.social:

Computationalism and consciousness with Nic Rouleau, Jaan Aru, and Borjan Milinkovic.

YouTube video by Michael Levin's Academic Content

youtube.com

New #preprint with Chris Fields: www.preprints.org/manuscript/2... "Cognitive Offloading Is a Cognitive Universal" 🧪

What is life? Final version is out @blaiseaguera.bsky.social Reed Bender, Karina Kofman link.springer.com/article/10.1... 🧪

What Lives? A Meta-Analysis of Diverse Opinions on the Definition of Life - Biological Theory

The question of "what is life?" has challenged scientists and philosophers for centuries, producing an array of definitions that reflect both the mystery of its emergence and the diversity of discipli...

link.springer.com

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...

Purinergic 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...

biorxiv.org

What are the preferences of novel in silico and in vivo agents that aren't directly engineered toward a specific set of behaviors? An example, from the world of Lenia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenia) - here's our #preprint on agnosiophobia (avoidance of the unknown): arxiv.org/abs/2605.30708

My good friend and neuroscientist Oné Pagán: youtu.be/pXMZHPvHRlU?...

TEDx West Chester University

YouTube video by WCUofPA Digital Media Center

youtu.be

AI agents can already scan the literature, analyze data, and generate hypotheses. Some predict they’ll revolutionize medicine. Others warn they’ll flood science. Tomorrow, @drmichaellevin.bsky.social and @odedrechavi.bsky.social discuss this topic. Register here: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Might metabolic networks be trainable as gene-regulatory networks are (thoughtforms.life/but-where-is...)? New #preprint Axel de Baat "Homeostatic feedback model of energy metabolism with adaptive enzyme levels exhibits problem solving behavior" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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 🧪

Language Game: Talking to Non-Human Systems

Language 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...

arxiv.org

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

Brains and where else? Mapping theories of consciousness to unconventional embodiments

Abstract. It is assumed that a useful theory of consciousness (ToC) will explain why consciousness is associated with brains. However, the findings of evol

royalsocietypublishing.org

🧪 Awesome new theme issue of Philosophical Transactions: ‘World models in natural and artificial intelligence’ Thank you Adam Safron! royalsocietypublishing.org/rsta/issue/3...

Volume 384 Issue 2320 | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A | The Royal Society

Influential themed journal issues across the physical mathematical and engineering sciences.

royalsocietypublishing.org

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" 🧪

The Causally Emergent Alignment Hypothesis: Causal Emergence Aligns with and Predicts Final Reward in Reinforcement Learning Agents

A 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 ...

arxiv.org

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:

BraiNCA: brain-inspired neural cellular automata and applications to morphogenesis and motor control

Most 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 ...

arxiv.org

New #preprint: @LPiolopez and Benjamin Lyons www.preprints.org/manuscript/2... "From Cancer to AI Alignment: Tackling Externalities Through Homeostatic Principles"

#naturephotography #infrared

Some life forms:

New preprint! Memory in Xenobots. @paivaibhav.bsky.social , James A. Traer, Megan M. Sperry, Yuxin Zehg www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Two different experiences produced distinct, long-term, stimulus-specific memories, detectable through both transcriptional and physiological signatures.

What would a nervous system look like if it self-assembled inside a novel being that hadn't faced a history of selection for its organism-level form and function? How would #Xenobots look & act, and what their transcriptome would be, with neurons? advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

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...

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

Toward autonomous self-organizing biological robots with a nervous system

By 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 ...

wyss.harvard.edu

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

Replies to the comments on www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... is now out here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "From complementarity to non-duality: Seeing objects and processes as pragmatic constructs"

From complementarity to non-duality: Seeing objects and processes as pragmatic constructs

sciencedirect.com

New preprint with Léo Pio-Lopez: www.preprints.org/manuscript/2... "Multi-Scale Longevity: Defeating Aging from Cells to Embodied Human Minds, and the Future of the Species" a broader view of longevity research.