Michael Levin

So development is really, you can look at development as just an example of regeneration.

Yep, with a given time, it takes time to grow large things.

For now.

Yeah, I think so.

I'm not going to say anything is impossible, but I don't know of a way to accelerate these processes.

I think it's possible.

I think we are going to be regenerative, but I don't know of a way to make it fast.

Yeah, so the reason we're talking about planaria is not only are they immortal, okay, not only do they regenerate every part of the body, but

They generally don't get cancer, right?

So, which we can talk about why that's important.

They're smart.

They can learn things.

So you can train them.

And it turns out that if you train a planarian and then cut their heads off, the tail will regenerate a brand new brain that still remembers the original information.

Like everything else, it's a continuum, but a true brain has certain characteristics as far as the density, like a localized density of neurons that guides behavior.

Exactly.

If you cut their head off, the tail doesn't do anything.

It just sits there until the new brain regenerates.

They have all the same neurotransmitters that you and I have.

But here's why we're talking about them in this context.