Experiments · The Celestial Code

Cut the worm

A diagram of the experiment, not a simulation. Colour shows the bioelectric pattern: which end becomes a head. Every worm has the same genes; only the pattern changes.

Where this comes from

The Celestial Code · Chapter 6

A Body Without a Manual

In Michael Levin’s lab at Tufts University, there’s an aquarium with planaria — flatworms half an inch long, with two black dots for eyes. Nothing particularly remarkable about them — except for one thing: some of them have two heads. Levin made them two-headed himself,…

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