Meet The Greatest Bioelectricity Scientist You’ve Never Heard Of

About the conversation

Want a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/about Min Zhao is the UC Davis professor whose lab discovered the first genes ever found in electrical signalling — proof that every cell in your body runs on a current, not just your brain. He can reverse the polarity of a field and watch a living cell physically turn around and walk the other way. Expect to learn why every wound in your body generates its own measurable electric current, how a single postdoc's "failed" experiment revealed a force that overrides genetics, why cells behave less like machines and more like agents making something resembling decisions, how reversing an electric field can make a cell physically turn around mid-migration, why cancer might be better understood as "a wound that never heals," how the eye shows electrical change before any disease becomes visible, and why electrical medicine is currently being tested all wrong. Timestamps 0:00:00 Trailer 0:02:20 What Everyone Gets Wrong About Wound Healing 0:07:57 Your Skin Is Secretly Electric (And So Is Everything Alive) 0:11:09 The 200-Year-Old Discovery Hiding in Every Wound 0:14:09 The Postdoc Result That Changed the Whole Lab 0:18:09 How Do Cells Know Where to Grow? (Five Fingers, Not Six) 0:20:50 The Potato Experiment That Reveals How Infections Start 0:24:14 Reverse the Field, Watch a Cell Turn Around 0:26:50 Why Cells Are Smarter Together Than Alone 0:35:23 The Bioelectricity Nobody Taught in Biology Class 0:41:06 Is Bioelectricity More Fundamental Than Genes? 0:46:03 When Electric Fields Override Genetics Entirely 1:01:19 Michael Levin's Xenobots, Debated 1:12:04 Do We Still Carry a Flatworm's Regenerative Power? 1:15:28 Could Humans Ever Be Cancer-Free Like Elephants? 1:21:21 Cancer as "A Wound That Never Heals" 1:26:18 The Eye Changes Electrically Before Disease Is Visible 1:27:46 Electric Medicine for Alzheimer's and Autoimmune Disease 1:31:33 Why Electrical Medicine Isn't Being Tested Right 1:33:26 The Wildest Possible Future for Bioelectric Medicine GS Episodes Mentioned Michael Levin — Michael Levin: Bioelectricity, Morphogenesis, Platonic Spaces & Xenobots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTBZRVKUwyM Philip Ball — Philip Ball: "Biology Is Infinitely Weirder Than We Thought": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SseGx0R0fY Denis Noble — Denis Noble: Evolution Has Purpose, Cell Consciousness & Why The Last 70 Years of Genetics Is Wrong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqw-DaWVK24 Michael Levin & Earl Miller — Michael Levin & Earl Miller: Platonic Space of Minds, Bioelectricity, Cell Intelligence & Neurobots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mU5nN5nlLA Guest Links UC Davis Faculty Profile: https://health.ucdavis.edu/dermatology/faculty/zhao.html Zhao Lab (UC Davis Dermatology): https://health.ucdavis.edu/dermatology/research/lab/zhao.html Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=G7-zWBcAAAAJ&hl=en Neuroengineering at UC Davis: https://neuroengineering.ucdavis.edu/people/min-zhao-md-phd UC Davis Profiles (Publications): https://profiles.ucdavis.edu/min.zhao Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5m3Gta5MtIYdk59pb2GJ7M