On Cellular Memory

“Perhaps a definition of memory should extend beyond behavior to encompass more records of the past. A vaccination is a kind of memory. So is a scar, a child, a book. ‘If you make a footprint, it’s a memory,’ Gershman said. An interpretation of memory as a physical event — as a mark made on the world, or on the self — would encompass the biochemical changes that occur within a cell. ‘Biological systems have evolved to harness those physical processes that retain information and use them for their own purposes,’ Gershman said. So, what does a cell know of itself? Perhaps a better version of Barbara McClintock’s question is: What can a cell remember? When it comes to survival, what a cell knows of itself isn’t as important as what it knows of the world: how it incorporates information about its experiences to determine when to bend, when to battle and when to make a break for it.”

Claire Evans - https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-can-a-cell-remember-20250730/. I’m between writing projects at the moment, focused on a new course in ethics, and finishing editing tasks for past projects in press now. I hope to return to the implications of this work on cell memory in future work on biosemiotics and biodeconstruction.