For those interested in more details and quite mind blowing examples, here is a fascinating interview with Michael Levin (one of the researchers mentioned in the article).
Start at 1:19:11, the stuff before is him talking about biology, but from an intelligence perspective. After this time stamp is his retrospective on his bioelectricity research over the years, showing also examples of how they got a frog embryo to produce eyes, and many more things.
Thanks for sharing this timestamp - Levin's retrospective on bioelectricity research is compelling. What fascinates me most is how his work challenges the gene-centric view of development. The experiments showing bioelectric patterns can override genetic instructions (like inducing eye formation in non-eye tissue) reveal a whole layer of morphogenetic information we're just beginning to understand.
> I don’t believe genetics ever claimed to provide a theory of why eyes grow where eyes grow.
That’s the whole point of developmental biology, to show how features of the human body form and develop based on gene expression, the timing of which during embryonic and fetal development itself is dictated by your genes.
If not your genes, what else would determine why you have eyes in about the same place in your head as every other human?
> The cells in your eyes have exactly the same DNA as the cells in your big toe, so developmental morphology cannot be explained with DNA alone.
Sure it can, because while every cell has essentially the same DNA, the expression of genes differs between cells, which is what causes cells to differentiate. And this differentiation also controls development; look up the Hox genes as an example.
He's changed wild-type planarians to grow the heads of other species. It reverts after a few weeks, because the system has error-correcting mechanisms, but the DNA of these worms is unchanged.
He once compared tinkering with DNA as pulling out a soldering iron to fix a software bug.
In the case of morphology, DNA may not be the best level of abstraction. It's certainly possible, just as one can use chemistry for social problems, but for some problems, affecting cell-to-cell communication may be a more direct path.
> If not your genes, what else would determine why you have eyes in about the same place in your head as every other human?
Theoretically, it could be second or much higher order effects that result from genes. It could be a combination of complex factors - the environment in the womb, nutrition, behavior by the mother, etc. - that eventually trace back to DNA.
Also, is it literally true that DNA is the only thing that's consistent (in these respects) between all generations of Homo sapiens?
Your last paragraph is their point: genes are regulated to produce that effect. The genes themselves aren’t doing it, but eg diffusion of chemical signals to inactivate genes.
Morphology is determined by the combination of genes, chemical signals, original cell machinery, and apparently electrical signals. But we never believed that genes determined morphology alone, eg, we know that chemical signals can cause anomalies.
> Morphology is determined by the combination of genes, chemical signals, original cell machinery, and apparently electrical signals. But we never believed that genes determined morphology alone, eg, we know that chemical signals can cause anomalies.
For the consistent parts - eyes may be different colors but are overwhelmingly consistent - what else could be the ultimate cause but DNA? For example, if those chemical signals, cell machinary, and electrical signals produce the same results billions of times over 200,000 years, then they must function the same overall. How does that happen if the chemical signals, cell machinary, and electrical signals aren't determined, even if indirectly, by DNA?
Your eyes would be misplaced if the process from cell clump to mat to tubule failed due to chemical signaling failure, but the whole embryo tends to be spontaneously aborted when gestation fails so catastrophically.
And despite genitalia being roughly one of two forms and similarly positioned, chemical signals can disrupt their formation.
> How does that happen if the chemical signals, cell machinary, and electrical signals aren't determined, even if indirectly, by DNA?
They don’t produce the same results with perfect accuracy — 75% of pregnancies are spontaneously aborted, at least in part due to developmental failures.
But the problem with this argument is simple: you have a human cell everywhere you have human DNA, so those correlations with DNA are also correlations with cellular machinery and with particular chemical signals from the mother. There was no point in those 200,000 years where DNA operated independently of those other mechanisms — we can only say the system as a whole reliably creates those features.
Interesting points, especially about the challenge of correlation. I guess we could remove DNA and see what happens ...
Somehow the machinary is passed down: Do we know of another mechanism besides DNA that is self-perpetuating? Is there any living creature without it? Prokaryotes (bacteria) even have DNA.
Or is there a way to do it without self-perpetuating mechanisms? Is that logically possible? Some machinary might be perpetuated by other machinary, e.g. the chemical might recreate the electrical, meaning it's not self-perpetuating. But that's not different than DNA: DNA itself isn't the machinary, but its self-perpetuation is what recreates other parts.
I suppose some parts of the environment are consistent, such as sunlight, air, water, and heat, but the environmental stimuli must trigger something that is already there.
> I guess we could remove DNA and see what happens ...
If I have a stool with three legs, and remove one leg causing it to fall, can I conclude that removed leg is what made it stand?
You’re making the same mistake as before in reverse: DNA would do nothing without a host cell or chemical signals, either.
> Somehow the machinary is passed down: Do we know of another mechanism besides DNA that is self-perpetuating?
The system as a whole is self-perpetuating, but DNA is not self-perpetuating: without a host cell and without ambient chemical signals, it cannot propagate. That’s in contrast to ribozymes which can be self-catalyzing RNA, ie, truly self-propagating chemicals.
In the RNA world hypothesis, such self-catalyzation was the origin of life; and by the time DNA evolved, it did so within a running biological system and as merely one component of cellular replication.
As a whole the system of chemical signals, DNA, and cellular machinery propagates; but just like our stool example, removing any of the factors causes that to fail.
> The cells in your eyes have exactly the same DNA as the cells in your big toe
Is that true?
I know that cells in the brain have significant variability in DNA, but not really aware of what non-neuronal and non-brain cells in general typically have.
if anyone is interest (note: i'm just a software engineer, not in biomedicine or bioelectricity yet). if there are already long running discord servers then i'd rather join these instead :)
Even since reading about Michael Levin's work, I've been sold that there is a lot going on in terms of bioelectricity outside of neurons. But I haven't seen that much progress. This is one interesting, albeit simple example.
>In this way, bioelectrical flow across cell membranes lets tissues test which cells are the least healthy and mark them for extrusion. “They’re always pushing against each other and bullying each other. And what they’re doing is probing each other for which one’s the weakest link,” Rosenblatt said. “It’s a community effect.”
This fits with my model of how high levels of cooperation succeed in biology. Even in a community as homogeneous as cells you have the risk of defectors (cancer), or just poor members. As such you need a process to continually test your community members.
This is classic Quanta Magazine sensationalism. Here's what the study actually said:
As cells in epithelial tissue get crowded, their membranes start to allow more sodium ions to enter, which makes the cell more electrically positive (depolarization). The cells try to counter this, but cells with insufficient stored energy (ATP) will struggle to do so, and will lose water through their membranes, causing them to shrink, which causes them to signal their neighbors to extrude them.
So there's no "group decisions" being made, no "coordination" between cells using "bioelectricity". Yes, all cells rely on electrical potentials across their membranes for normal functioning, potentials that they have to maintain. That's all the involvement of electricity here.
And the only "decision-making" happening here is within a single cell, but of course cells don't "make decisions', cells are little machines, and part of the mechanism for epithelial cells -- a mechanism that works in part using chemistry and electricity -- includes the cell signaling that it needs to be extruded in certain circumstances, like shrinkage.
How about a chemical causing a flagellum motor to change direction, would you consider that making a decision?
and what if there is indirection, IE light triggers some sensor molecule that then triggers the flagellum motor.
I guess it all comes down to your definition of decision. The most amazing is mitosis, it sure looks like a massive amount of coordination is required.
Electricity is the core of a single cell functionality as well, most biomolecules are on the exact boundary between a conductor and an insulator (and likely switch the state based on other molecules binding, pH, etc). A group of cells electricity is a higher level abstraction of that.
One acquaintance, after years of trying to work out what was wrong and believing EM missions may play a role turned out to have hemochromotosis (genetic disorder characterized by excessive intestinal absorption of dietary iron, resulting in a pathological increase in total body iron) which is fixed by regular blood donations.
You’re making an assumption here that it was not the increased iron in her body that made them more sensitive to electromagnetic fields. I mean, I’m not saying it’s true or not, but that’s the mistake you’re making in your argument.
I think many people who don’t have EMF sensitivity find EMFs something easy to say is the cause their health issues, but they approach how to figure it out if it is true with zero scientific thought.
I mean you are essentially projecting energy somewhere. Of course it causes something. The availability of a different level of energy changes chemical balances and reactions. It can also trigger some sensors or effectors. It might also just temporarily increase the temperature, but trigger nothing else.
Yes, I think it is. And I am one of these people who are sensitive to electromagnetic fields. Both radio frequency and lower frequency magnetic and electric fields.
No, I’m not running around with a tinfoil hat on thinking that it’s going to kill me, but it does cause me, insomnia, nightmares, and a worsening of my mood disorder.
The problem is since voltage gated ion channels are also associated with mood disorders[1] and are, I believe, how EMF’s effect certain people, then it’s easy to play our sensitivity off as just our mood disorder.
It was known for a long time that some reflexes and responses are mostly spontaneous and don't require decisions from the mind. Such reactions, such as pulling away when touched a hot surface, do require muscle contraction which in turn requires electrical pulses, which indicates the presence of bio electrical charges everywhere. Can some help me understand what exactly is new here. I knew that something is new.
What you are talking about is the functional use of electrical impulses to active muscle. This article is talking about electrical potential as signalling mechanism for cell health, than can be used by a tissue to eject aging or sick cells
If it’s known some kind of decision making, so to speak, was happening via electrical signals in the spinal cord… why is it suprising that it happens in other types of cells too?
Yes, he discusses the Platonic aspects of his theory in a paper, “Ingressing Minds: Causal Patterns Beyond Genetics and Environment in Natural, Synthetic, and Hybrid Embodiments”:
People can read these articles and go oh cool, but then in the same breath they will say radio frequency electromagnetic fields have no effect on human health.
The article describes the mechanism in some detail near the end. As I understand it, it's not really "coordination" in the sense that they exchange messages through the electricity.
It's more that every cell has to maintain a voltage difference between the inside and outside ("membrane potential"). A healthy cell does that constantly using "ion pumps" that use chemical energy (ATP) to increase the potential.
If that potential falls below a certain threshold, certain molecular mechanisms (voltage-sensitive ion channels) inside the cell are triggered that lead to ejection.
Interestingly, are also other mechanisms (pressure-sensitive ion channels) that will "intentionally" make it harder for a cell to maintain its potential if it's already weakened or if the surrounding region is very crowded.
As such, I think the effect of current would depend on the way how it would change the voltage differences of the individual cells.
I wonder what the role of inflammation in all this is. It must be a major disrupter (or the effect?) of such electrical comms, with all these cytokines and fluid influx changing things around.
Because that is useless? The physical phenomenon is so very, very different in biological systems compared to the metal-wire electricity our electrical devices are based on that they are entirely different things.
For example, charge carriers are electrons in metal wires vs. ions in biological systems. That has huge implications, because moving around ions is a lot harder, and slower.
In a metal wire the electrical field is established from beginning to the end, and that means that the electrons at the end start moving at pretty much the same time as the ones at the other end, no matter how long the wire. That means in a metal wire signals move at a significant fraction of the speed of light in a vacuum, because it is the speed of the electrical field and not that of the charge carriers that matters.
In a biological system electrical fields are tiny! The way the signal propagates in an axon is much more cumbersome, expensive, and slow. Speed of signal propagation is ca. 1/2 to at most 100 m/s (for thick myelinated axons). The signal is propagated by jumping in very tiny steps along the axon's inner surface. (https://youtu.be/tOTYO5WrXFU)
This also makes The Matrix movies' main premise about humans as batteries a little strange: Sure, there's lots of electrical activity, but it is in trillions of very tiny places across nanometer distances. And it is created by moving ions around (at great energy cost).
So anyway, what actually physically happens in an electrical grid of metal wires, or in a biological system are vastly different things. It is not the same "electricity", the only thing they have in common is that electrical fields and charge carriers (but different ones) are involved. But the way it is structured, created, propagated is entirely different in both cases.
When I asked Google out of curiosity what it had to say it showed this:
> Despite their differences, both are fundamentally, at their core, the movement of charged particles driven by electrical potential differences.
This is just not correct! The "the movement of charged particles" part specifically. Again, wires have one electrical field, but in biological systems propagation is entirely different, and slow, and expensive! The methods used to propagate a signal are not even remotely comparable. That's a difference not even a Radio Yerevan joke could make use of.
I think in the original story of the Matrix humans were not batteries but meant to be used as biological GPUs for the machines to run upon. The studio felt that this idea might be too confusing in 1999. So that’s why Morpheus holds up a battery.
The article notes that bioelectricity is just referring to electricity not occuring in the heart or brain which has a different specialized name. Simply saying electricity is captures more than the cell types reported on.
So this is sort of.. environmentally available electrical potential in the cell? Or is it more constrained than the venues from the heart and the cell to other specific venues?
It'll blow their minds when they start researching chi kung and realise it's possible to draw in more energy by breathing and move it round the body. It's also possible to feel some kind of field around the body.
Auras and chakras don't sound so silly now do they.
To me the most interesting part of Levin’s research is that they can convince cells to grow two arms, two tails, etc. and when they cut off the two tails, it grows back with two tails. This is without any genetic changes, so where is the information being stored?
Likewise there’s research that butterflies can be taught to have aversions to certain chemicals or smells in the caterpillar state, and they continue to have those aversions in the butterfly state even though they’re entire body becomes a chemical soup during the chrysalis stage. Where is that behavioral information being stored if not neurons?
I think this is pointing to a discover that’s much more profound than the body using electricity in interesting ways. I think it’s pointing to a new force or new aspect of electromagnetism that hasn’t been discovered yet.
"It'll blow those Chemists' minds when they start researching Alchemy and they realize the incredible power of mercury and lead to rejuvenate the body and lead to an elixir of youth!"
"It'll blow those Astronomers' minds when they start researching Astrology and the powerful effect of being born under auspicious constellations!"
__________
If the ancient guru knowledge is so great, what testable predictions does it offer, where "auras" are a causal mechanism?
In other words, not: "Thou must intake the golden aura of oats and fiber by eating some, to counter the dark brown blockage of your Pu-point." The folk remedy might well solve your constipation, but it wouldn't be evidence for the mythology around it.
It feels really great to wield the scientific method and feel supercilious to all other people and ideas that do not arise from such infallible reasoning, and sure the progress of humanity hockey sticked since empiricism took hold. But let's not forget that empiricism is limited by what we can/want/think to measure.
Like it's pretty well accepted that breathing exercises have physiological and mental health benefits but it took decades of consumerist appropriation of yoga and other techniques before academia properly found the motivation to earnestly investigate that yes breathing exercises are indeed good for you.
As someone who is a deep practitioner of martial arts and athletics, if the metaphors of qi gong and yoga were purely powerful visualisation aids that already provides more than enough tangible benefit. I don't need scientists to tell me that qi is good for my body - I can feel it.
So let's keep an open mind, our ancestors were anything but idiots.
> So let's keep an open mind, our ancestors were anything but idiots.
Just not so open our brains fall out.
Our ancestors were just like us, but fewer in number and inventing things from scratch. Miasma, spontaneous generation, Newtonian gravity, these were not people being idiots, and even though they have been shown to be wrong they are still close enough to still be useful today. Phlogiston also wasn't idiotic, but lacks utility vs being correct about oxygen.
One of the shared ways we failed then and now is that what sounds true isn't the same as what is true; the modern easy example of this is how easily many of us get fooled by LLMs, and I suspect that's how a lot of ancient religions grew, with additions and copy-errors evolving them to be maximally plausible-sounding to a human mind.
If this actually works, I'm going to be convinced that some alchemist overheard an alien dude talking about this but misinterpreted it in line with contemporary knowledge.
Proper hatha yoga (not the modern hijacked nonsense) is literally a predictive method to experience deeper aspects of oneself, one part of which is a greater sensitivity to energy movements and corresponding fields.
There is already western research on kundalini, the most potent example of bioelectrical energy, and changes in energy potential experienced by meditators. Not to mention countless empirical self-reports (upon which a good scientist would keep an open mind).
But don't let facts get in the way of your prejudices.
Words have meaning, don't write random things about a topic you don't understand because of cultural pride. What you have written is nonsense and demeans hatha yoga, among other things.
> predictive method
No
> corresponding fields
What field? Corresponding to what?
> changes in energy potential experienced by meditators
I think it's worth taking the results seriously but not the proposed mechanism literally. Equating an internal feeling which is loosely referred to as a form of "energy" with physical electricity/bioelectricity would be a mistake. Of course all sensations are indirectly the result of nerve impulses and bioelectricity, but you wouldn't say that someone experiencing tingles of say ASMR has literally received "energy".
It may turn out that you can consciously influence bioelectricity on certain levels (I mean you can certainly control motor functions, maybe you can modulate the current of injury [1] by thinking about a body part?). But you need to be clear about the level of abstraction: when you feel a pit in your stomach are you going to literally attribute this to "clogged energy in your lower dantian", at the chemical level of increased norepinephrine and reduced blood flow to your stomach, or simply as a result of your emotions and anxieties at the moment?
A less fanciful way to say "experience deeper aspects of oneself, one part of which is a greater sensitivity to energy movements and corresponding fields" might simply be "greater sensitivity to emotion and bodily awareness". People do the same thing with therapy, discovering emotional/mental baggage they'd been carrying for a long time, and parts of the body they had been unconsciously tensing.
When everything in our body is meditated by impulses and electricity, saying that you're "becoming more attuned to energy" can be technically true but a functionally useless abstraction. You can equally say "more attuned to chemical fluctuations in your brain/body" or "more attuned to homeostasis disruptions". Maybe in the past they didn't have the vocabulary to distinguish these levels of abstraction, but today we do. (And Michael Levin's work is showing that we've actually been underpaying attention to the bioelectric). This is the same way that the "theory of humors" sort of makes sense on a metaphorical level but it falls apart in a literal sense.
> is literally a predictive method to experience deeper aspects of oneself, one part of which is a greater sensitivity to energy movements and corresponding fields.
What does it actually predict? What measureable predictions can be tested?
https://youtu.be/c8iFtaltX-s?t=4751
Start at 1:19:11, the stuff before is him talking about biology, but from an intelligence perspective. After this time stamp is his retrospective on his bioelectricity research over the years, showing also examples of how they got a frog embryo to produce eyes, and many more things.
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