Vols viatjar en el temps? De l'origen de la vida a la ment humana a la teoria de la relativitat, els viatges en el temps o la historia, t'esperem a la expo "La Invenció del Temps" al Centre Martorell @crisaez.bsky.social @prbb.org museuciencies.cat/exposicio_te... @ajuntamentbcn.bsky.social

𝗩𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 Looks quite interesting. "Collective coordination" as state where unspecialized cells coordinate behavior through distributed signaling before specialized tissues like the brain can emerge. link.springer.com/article/10.1... #neuroskyence

What would happen to consciousness if two brains were connected? Could two people share experiences while remaining distinct selves? Cases like the Hogan twins suggest yes, and theories about the neural locality of consciousness make shared experience likely. philarchive.org/archive/COCA...

Classical billiards can compute. With Isaac Ramos, we show that 2D billiard systems are Turing complete, implying the existence of undecidable trajectories in physically natural models from hard-sphere gases to celestial mechanics. Determinism ≠ predictability. 🎱🧠 @upc.edu @ricardsole.bsky.social

Cooperation is a universal feature of complex systems, from the origins of life and microbiomes to societies. What universal patterns can be found in these systems? Here's our new @pnas.org paper. @jordipinero.bsky.social @artemyte.bsky.social @sfiscience.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

🚨 What if evolution is the ”law”… and networks are the machines that do the work? In this paper (just published) I try to formalize how living systems are non-equilibrium, information-processing, adaptive matter. With a great biological flavor! 🧪🌐🌍🧬🦠 👉 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1... 🧵 1/

“Those of us who do not believe that we are divinely created, let alone divinely supervised, are not immune to the idea of awe and beauty and the transcendent.” Christopher Hitchens gave a powerful defense of awe in science. He died 14 years ago today. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K0a...

Our new science exhibition “The Invention of Time” has just opened in Barcelona. Come explore time in physics, brains & life, from Evolution 2 relativity. We even have a working Time Machine (that’s me using it) @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social @icreacommunity.bsky.social museuciencies.cat/en/exposicio...

Can design principles be defined for #biocomputation beyond living circuits or standard engineering approaches? Yes. We identified an alternative route based on a class of distributed computation enabling combinatorial design for #synbio link.springer.com/article/10.1...

It's been thought since the early 70s that eukaryotes (basically any life with a cell nucleus) wouldn't survive above 62C and no complex life had been shown living above 60C. Until the "fire amoeba"... 🧪 (These are some of my favorite stories to write, just weird neat stuff we're learning.)

‘Even the animals seem confused’: a retreating Kashmir glacier is creating an entire new world in its wake

Can ecological network theory explain the transition from health to disease in microbiome-related processes? Yes, and this outstanding new paper led by Miguel A. Muñoz shows exactly how. An exceptional contribution that moves the field forward: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @vmaull.bsky.social

TIL about a memorial ceremony in Iceland in 2019 to mark the end of a glacier, changing the place name from Okjökull to Ok (jökull = glacier). Uncompromising wording on the bronze plaque: "This is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it".

Could cognition emerge from matter at scales far below neurons? This @nature.com paper explores whether molecular self-assembly can perform neural-like classification. The work suggests that even physical processes may carry out sophisticated information processing. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Why do brains generalize so well while today’s neural networks often fail outside their training data? Check this paper in @cp-neuron.bsky.social argues how neuroscience can guide better architectures & representations. Check the table below. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Network Medicine is entering a new phase: one that demands we rethink how we study, model and ultimately treat complex diseases. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #ComplexSystems #NetworkScience #Medicine #MedSky 🧪🧬🌐 🧵 1/

A new special issue of Philosophical Transactions B takes on one of science’s biggest questions: how life begins. Rather than retracing Earth’s history, the authors look for the universal conditions that could make life possible anywhere, approaching the question from many fields and angles.

So after listening to multiple talks by philosophers of mind who defend consciousness as the substrate of the entire universe, and physicists who invoke quantum mechanics as the source of consciousness, the conclusion is clear: they have no idea about neuroscience, nor any interest to know about it.

One of the cartoons in my new book 'Physics for Cats' which is out now in the UK, USA, Canada, France and Germany. Order from your local bookshops or online: www.tomgauld.com/

Phase transitions, bifurcations, thermal vents, exoplanets and their interactive maps, as well as pointers to a whole special issue just published in @royalsocietypublishing.org about origin of life. With Spotify and Apple podcasts as usual. What do you need more? CC: @ricardsole.bsky.social

Great piece by astronomer and SETI leader Jason Wright on the endless, exhausting claims about 3I/Atlas by Avi Loeb. "zero planetary scientists give Avi’s claims any credence... because he’s demonstrably wrong" sites.psu.edu/astrowright/...

How “intelligent” is a slime mold? When it solves mazes, it might not be thinking:it’s obeying physics. Our new paper with @jordiplam.bsky.social shows how it follows a least action principle,letting physics do the job arxiv.org/pdf/2511.08531 @drmichaellevin.bsky.social @docteur-drey.bsky.social

James D. Watson is dead. Stay tuned for some thoughts, based on my research on his biography, to be published soon. While I write that up, y'all can throw tomatoes at this if you like. But I will offer a more nuanced take. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/s...

Sunday morining at @sfiscience.bsky.social

What is the origin of diversity in allometric laws scaling across species? Check our new paper led by Andrea Tabi where we propose a new theory of metabolic scaling grounded in thermodynamics and stochastic fluctuations at the cellular level. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Why do cultural skills (reading, maths) consistently activate the same brain regions across people? @standehaene.bsky.social and L. Cohen argue that culture doesn’t create new brain circuits: it invades evolutionarily ancient maps of the cortex. check this great paper www.cell.com/action/showP...

Back to @sfiscience.bsky.social joining the night shift (with some extra coffee) at the Cormac McCarthy's Library. Working on criticality + cancer, statistical physics of ant colonies, the Physarum Lagrangian, universal genetic codes, synthetic agriculture & hybrid agencies. @jordiplam.bsky.social

Why do some cancers respond to immunotherapy while others don’t? A new paper by @guimaguade.bsky.social shows, using maths, that as tumors mutate, they face a trade-off: growing faster can also make them easier for the immune system to spot. @sandyanderson.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

What can we learn about living computation from non-living machines? In this @royalsocietypublishing.org A. Adamatzky shows that a computer doesn’t need to be solid. From droplets 2 chemical waves, liquid computers blur the line between chemistry & thought. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

How can we design complex computational systems using synthetic biology? Check our paper, where we use space as a computational element, dramatically reducing communication requirements while allowing modularity, reusability, scalability & minimal cell engineering. journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

A microscopic organism can survive the vacuum of space: yet our infrastructures collapse under a summer storm. Why? 👉 Because structure isn’t enough. Resilience depends on functionality. And we need a lot of network science to grasp it. 📖 manlius.substack.com/p/making-sen... #ComplexityThoughts

What if we could chart all cell types across the tree of life? In @nature.com, @arnausebe.bsky.social and colls launch the Biodiversity Cell Atlas, a global effort to map eukaryotic cell diversity using single-cell & genomic data. drive.google.com/file/d/1G4zZ... @crg.eu @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social

In a sense, yes: at the molecular–cellular level, death is the failure of energy-driven mechanisms that maintain vital gradients. Yet other forms of death—like that of the mind—need not involve this physical breakdown.

What is the physical basis of death? Can we manipulate cellular rules to avoid it? What does death mean for a machine? Is immortality possible? What does it mean for language, thought, or information to die? My new book @princetonupress.bsky.social is coming soon. press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

When change moves faster than systems can adapt, they tip Our culture of “now-ism” risks pushing climate, economies and societies past their limits The latest #ComplexityThoughts: 👉 manlius.substack.com/p/how-modern... 🎧 on Spotify and Apple #ComplexSystems #Resilience @ricardsole.bsky.social

Can consciousness arise purely from computation, or does it require the biological mechanisms that allow computing? The tension between computational roles and biological realizers may hold the key. Check this paper by @neddo.bsky.social @mkhochb.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Can general artificial intelligence emerge by not following the evolution of complex brains? In this 2022 paper with @brigan.bsky.social we argued that embodiment, mind reading (mirror systems), mental time traveling... are necessary conditions www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/24... @anilseth.bsky.social

Is 3I/Atlas anything other than a comet? It’s remarkable how much bullshit has spread in recent months thanks to Avi Loeb’s sensational claims & how many journalists & influencers have taken the bait. Thanks @setiinstitute.bsky.social for fighting misinformation eartharxiv.org/repository/v...

Honored to receive the 2024 Outstanding Publication Award from the Intl Soc for Artificial Life @alife2025.bsky.social for our @royalsocietypublishing.org ublishing.org paper “Fundamental Constraints to the Logic of Living Systems” @sfiscience.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

How does life construct itself from within, and how might we learn to emulate its generative logic? Glad to be soon talking and discussing with @philipcball.bsky.social @bertaverd.bsky.social and other great colleagues at this @royalsociety.org event royalsociety.org/science-even...

Si trobem vida en un altre planeta, serà diferent de la que coneixem? Crear vida al laboratori seguirà les mateixes regles? Pot existir vida sense aigua o ADN? I les IAs del futur, poden aparèixer sense assemblar-se al cervell humà? Vine al @iec.cat i t’ho explico! @melisupf.bsky.social @prbb.org

What if the chaotic-looking patterns in dryland vegetation were actually hiding a deep order? Check our new @pnas.org paper on "disordered hyperuniformity": a hidden structure with big implications for sustainability in Earth’s most fragile ecosystems.https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2504496122

How dit life originate in our planet? How can we create it in the lab?Our @royalsocietypublishing.org Theme Issue "Origins of Life: the possible and the actual", coedited with @sfiscience.bsky.social C Kempes and Susan Stepney is out! royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202... @manlius.bsky.social

Jane Goodall was my first childhood hero, as I loved animals as a kid and was inspired by her story. I still remember the National Geographic specials about her. RIP.

Looking forward to speak at this @embo.org Workshop event meetings.embo.org/event/25-mul... to explore the origins of multicellular complexity along with great colleagues @multicellgenome.bsky.social @wcratcliff.bsky.social @viktri08.bsky.social I will be discussing synthetic multicellularity.

What is agency? How did it emerge through evolution? Why is it key to understanding complexity? Check out this brilliant Open Access book by my dear colleagues Alvaro Moreno & @julipereto.bsky.social. A deep exploration of a crucial concept. Highly recommended! link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

If you could travel through time — any era, any place — when would you go? Come imagine it with us, aboard our 1:1 Victorian time machine, at the upcoming exhibition “The Invention of Time” at Centre Martorell. Opening next Xmas! museuciencies.cat/en/the-nat/venues/centre-martorell-dexposicions/

Can synthetic biology help save endangered ecosystems? Our new paper with @vmaull.bsky.social explores how engineered genes can spread through soil microbes. We model how synthetic gene transfer can support biodiversity. @vdlorenzo.bsky.social @guimaguade.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Benedict Cumberbatch recites Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish’s “On this land there are reasons to live” poem at Together for Palestine. #GazaGenocide #GazaHolocaust

Can a Netflix series teach us something important not about the ancient past, but about how we create and evaluate knowledge today? Göbekli Tepe, underground cities, ancient deluges and Bayes theorem. An unusual #ComplexityThoughts essay this week. Curious? 👉 open.substack.com/pub/manlius/...