Physical Biology of the Cell

Selected reading: A simple reaction–diffusion or threshold model.

How to study this source

• How do cells make a body?

  criticismA simple reaction–diffusion or threshold model

  Choose one simple model relevant to patterning and state how its variables simplify cells.

Ideas and questions

Read background definitions when a term blocks the argument. Then return to the source and reconstruct its claim in your own words.

Read alongside, read against

• Endogenous Bioelectrics in Development, Cancer, and Regeneration: Drugs and Bioelectronic Devices as Electroceuticals for Regenerative Medicine

  Michael Levin. Compare assumptions, evidence and scope with the source above. These are editorial companions, not necessarily direct responses.

• The Computational Boundary of a “Self”: Developmental Bioelectricity Drives Multicellularity and Scale-Free Cognition

  Michael Levin. Compare assumptions, evidence and scope with the source above. These are editorial companions, not necessarily direct responses.

• Top-down models in biology: explanation and control of complex living systems above the molecular level

  Giovanni Pezzulo · Michael Levin. Compare assumptions, evidence and scope with the source above. These are editorial companions, not necessarily direct responses.

• Endless Forms Most Beautiful

  Sean B. Carroll. Compare assumptions, evidence and scope with the source above. These are editorial companions, not necessarily direct responses.

• On Growth and Form

  D'Arcy Thompson. Compare assumptions, evidence and scope with the source above. These are editorial companions, not necessarily direct responses.