Essays on living systems, cognition, evolution, and scientific practice.https://maorknafo.com/en-ushttps://maorknafo.com/blog/learning-to-culture-the-uncultured/https://maorknafo.com/blog/learning-to-culture-the-uncultured/We can now sequence almost anything. That does not mean we can touch it. Most of the microbial world still sits on the far side of cultivation: named…Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTculturomicspredictive agencyexperimental systemsMaor Knafohttps://maorknafo.com/blog/3d-printers-are-inherently-anti-developmental-but-are-huge-fun-and-you-should-definitely-get-one/https://maorknafo.com/blog/3d-printers-are-inherently-anti-developmental-but-are-huge-fun-and-you-should-definitely-get-one/I love 3D printing. I'm fascinated with it to the point where the stuff I make is, sometimes, almost meaningless. I love the designing part the most, all…Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTmakingdevelopmenttechnologyMaor Knafohttps://maorknafo.com/blog/the-cell-dreams-wrong/https://maorknafo.com/blog/the-cell-dreams-wrong/At the edge of function and noise, when the core machinery breaks down, there is a kind of dream. Not the random twitch of unconscious molecules, but…Tue, 20 May 2025 00:00:00 GMTcellular memoryadaptationstressMaor Knafohttps://maorknafo.com/blog/memories-all-the-way-down/https://maorknafo.com/blog/memories-all-the-way-down/Could memories be an emergent cellular property ? The 60s were a weird time, and no one was weirder than a group of scientists studying the transfer of…Fri, 07 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMTcellular memorybasal cognitionemergenceMaor Knafohttps://maorknafo.com/blog/laplace-and-all-his-demons/https://maorknafo.com/blog/laplace-and-all-his-demons/The evening deepened. The games were played, the food was eaten, and the events moved along their planned course, drawn by invisible threads, traveling…Fri, 28 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMTdeterminismpredictionphilosophyMaor Knafohttps://maorknafo.com/blog/if-it-lives-it-ignores/https://maorknafo.com/blog/if-it-lives-it-ignores/A while back, I was finishing an extremely challenging BJJ roll with an enthusiastic, overly athletic 22-year-old. We talked about injuries and movies as…Mon, 17 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMTattentioninformationcognitionMaor Knafohttps://maorknafo.com/blog/the-task-of-op/https://maorknafo.com/blog/the-task-of-op/Imagine we are space explorers. We are a board our craft, far from home, hyper-galactic vagabonds in pursuit of life and meaning. We land on an exoplanet…Sun, 10 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMToptimizationevolutioncomplexityMaor Knafohttps://maorknafo.com/blog/this-village-has-a-secret-that-almost-everybody-knows/https://maorknafo.com/blog/this-village-has-a-secret-that-almost-everybody-knows/And suddenly, the sound of a horn. The horn hadn't been in years. Maybe ever, but everyone intuitively knew its purpose. They were to stop whatever they…Thu, 03 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMTcollective behaviorknowledgeemergenceMaor Knafohttps://maorknafo.com/blog/the-art-of-destruction-and-the-destruction-of-art/https://maorknafo.com/blog/the-art-of-destruction-and-the-destruction-of-art/One night in 2001, William Basinski sat on the rooftop of his apartment building in New York. I can only assume he was pretty tired. He had spent the…Fri, 14 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMTentropyartchangeMaor Knafo