bio

Developmental bioelectricity

A morphological information layer sitting on top of the genome: every living cell maintains a voltage across its membrane, and spatial patterns of that voltage across a tissue store and impose the "target morphology" the body builds toward. Work by Michael Levin and colleagues shows that changing the electrical state alone — without editing a single letter of DNA — can make a flatworm regrow two heads, or grow a complete eye where no eye belongs. The voltage does not draft the organ; it flips a switch on an existing developmental program.