bio

Target morphology

The stable shape a body continuously builds toward and regenerates back to after injury — as if anatomy were an equilibrium in "shape space" that cells keep correcting toward until the error is zero. A flatworm regenerates exactly one head because its target morphology is "one head." The startling part is that this target can be rewritten: change the bioelectric state and the worm "remembers" a new target morphology — two heads — and holds it across repeated re-cuttings.