Just finished, a woodcut print with asemic writing. About 14" x 11", titled "Current Affairs." #MediaCriticism #ICEPolicies #Artwork #Politics

New paper showing that much of the apparent success of protein language models in predicting mutational effects is a mirage: These models mostly memorize sites. 1/ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The origin of our eyes over half a billion years ago is looking more and more weird--from a cyclops to four eyes to two. Here's my story (gift link): nyti.ms/4rzisQP

Quick reminder that it’s NOT too late to get your flu shot. Influenza B cases are rising—which is typical around this time of respiratory virus season. Cases will likely continue to climb for a few more weeks.

AI requires good data. Public health requires good. Linking the two presents huge challenges and opportunities. I joined Oliver Morgan, WHO Director of Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence Innovation, on his podcast to talk about how we can meet this moment. youtu.be/kC1uLIkmpo0?...

Fine @nytimes.com, I’ll have spaghetti with a side salad.

In a new preprint, we combine modeling with school-level vaccine data to contextualize the risk of 'breakthrough infections' and impacts on the ongoing US measles outbreak. #idsky #episky www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

We’ve reached the urban skiing stage of our winter storm in Boston!

:chefs_kiss: Google

*New paper in Nature Health* Why did the 2022 mpox outbreak in Paris decline so abruptly? rdcu.be/eZ24H

The conference (agreement between House and Senate) appropriations bill that includes HHS and NIH was released this morning. www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/majorit... 1/5

Really excited our paper about how H5N1 rapidly adapted to cattle (and how these adaptations also increased its ability to infect cells from the human respiratory tract) is now published! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Looks like it’s gonna be another banner aurora night if it’s clear where you are

Tylenol during pregnancy is safe without increased risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability of offspring A new review of the evidence just out www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

@kyriakikalimeri.bsky.social & Elisa Omodei come together for a rare joint session at NetSci Conference 2026. Their research draws on real-world data, exploring how network and computational social science can address societal issues. tinyurl.com/4t5p46yr

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Adaptive behaviors neutralize bistable explosive transitions in higher-order contagion arxiv.org/abs/2601.05801

Our new paper on searching the space of hypergraphs to solve constrained combinatorial optimization problem is out. This was joint work with Guilherme Ferraz de Arruda, Wan He, Nasimeh Heydaribeni, Tara Javidi, and Yamir Moreno. communities.springernature.com/posts/buildi...

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Now that we’re back, I want to promote this awesome work from our group led by former UG Researcher, Gillian Patton (now a Ph.D student at Wash U) published in Evol. Letters! We blocked a first step mutation that typically promotes biofilm formation to see how this roadblock influences evolution.

IU winning a national championship is my Turing Test.

New preprint modeling pathogen phylogeography, where infected hosts spread disease through short "trips" between locations. Very fun collaboration with the brilliant @albertchristian.bsky.social and Ammon Thompson. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

This is a really cool project, I was lucky to have the opportunity to participate. news.mcmaster.ca/mcmaster-res...

We’re excited to announce 𝗨𝗹𝗿𝗶𝗸 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝘀 as an Invited Plenary Speaker at @netsciconf.bsky.social 2026! ✨ A leader in social network science & visualization, his work spans centrality, clustering, & more recently sports analytics using network-based approaches to football. www.netsci2026.com/speakers

Two more fully funded PhDs in real-time infectious disease modelling & forecasting — developing methods for operational use by @ukhsa.bsky.social and others in outbreak response. UK home students, starting April or September 2026. www.lshtm.ac.uk/study/fees-a...

Wisconsin's, the second largest dairy producing state in the US, has #H5N1 #birdflu in a herd. It will be interesting to see if the virus moves through WI herds in the way it swept through California's (#1 dairy producing state). www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-po...

#FDA has approved a new 1st-in-class oral antibiotic for the treatment of #gonorrhea, which has been making its way through the armamentarium of available antibiotics. Nuzolvence was brought to market through a private-public partnership involving @gardp.bsky.social. www.statnews.com/2025/12/12/f...

1/2 🚨New paper In a collab b/w my group + @nathangrubaugh.bsky.social, led by a fabulous doctoral student, we synthesize the data on epistasis across several viral pathogen systems (e.g., influenza, HIV, SARS-CoV-2, tobacco etch virus, etc). academic.oup.com/ve/article/1...

More than 70 vultures found dead on athletic fields in Ohio. They most likely died from bird flu. This isn't going away. www.wlwt.com/article/dead...

Applications are open for SFI’s 2026 summer education programs, offering research and training in complexity science in Santa Fe, NM: – Undergraduate Complexity Research – Complex Systems Summer School – Graduate Workshop in Computational Social Science Info: www.santafe.edu/engage/learn...

1/ If you're gathering for Thanksgiving, I'd suggest a flu rapid test. Clear evidence across the US that flu season is kicking off. Almost certainly the H3N2 "K variant" is behind surging rates. I discussed what we're seeing in the US w/ @apoorvanyt.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/h...

Flu Overview update. A month ago we detected flu in less than 10% of samples. In the most recent batch over 50% had FluA (H1N1 and/or H3N2) and 75% had FluC. Numbers were low, but flu season is starting.

H3N2 preprint: there are concerns of a severe incoming influenza season due to the drifted H3N2 K clade. We at @psioxford.bsky.social analysed epi data and ran scenario models to see what we could discern about K clade transmission dynamics: zenodo.org/records/1770.... (1/18)

We’ve just released Epistorm-Mix, a new open dataset on how people in the U.S. mix across ages and settings in the post-COVID era. 📊 Contact-level data + contact matrices Built for epidemic modeling & forecasting Fully open data & code 🔗 www.epistorm.org/data/epistor...

We are excited to share the NetSci Conference announcement of its 1st plenary speakers! 🥁 🥁 Two pioneers—one stage: 𝗗𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗪𝗮𝘁𝘁𝘀 & 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗮𝘁𝘇 will reflect on the ideas that shaped their work and transformed our field in a joint keynote! NetSci 2026: tinyurl.com/4jdxb4kv

We're searching for a tenure-track prof in health & tech at our Charlotte, NC campus! Successful candidates will join @nubouve.bsky.social, w/ cross-disciplinary appointments and membership in @nunetsi.bsky.social & Experiential AI encouraged. northeastern.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/career...

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We're searching for a tenure-track prof in health & tech at our Charlotte, NC campus! Successful candidates will join @nubouve.bsky.social, w/ cross-disciplinary appointments and membership in @nunetsi.bsky.social & Experiential AI encouraged. northeastern.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/career...

1/ 📰 Fantastic to see the official website for the Global Society for Infectious Disease Dynamics (GSIDD) is now live! #GSIDD #IDsky #EpiSky 🧪 🗺️ GSIDD serves the global community of researchers, practitioners and educators in infectious disease dynamics. 🔗: www.gsidd.org

Sunday morning @bostonglobe.com with the unparalleled profs @sramach.bsky.social and @cbo.bsky.social.

"What James Watson got wrong about DNA" By the great Sohini Ramachandran (@sramach.bsky.social) and your boy for The Boston Globe (@bostonglobe.com). www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/14/o...

1/ The CDC's Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics has also posted estimates of influenza growth. Their analysis similarly shows widespread growth. www.cdc.gov/cfa-modeling...

1/ The US CDC has restarted influenza reporting! The data support what we've seen in the wastewater, Walgreens, & genome sequencing data. Flu rates are low, but rising (especially in kids). 70% of subtyped viruses were H3 and 50% of those were the "K" variant. Now is the time to get vaccinated.

1/ Seasonal influenza summary from latest @ukhsa.bsky.social surveillance report. #IDSky #EpiSky 🧪 🗓️ Based on data up to week 45 2025 (03-09 Nov 2025) 📊 Unusually early start to influenza season in England. Circulation remains high in children & young adults. Report 🔗: www.gov.uk/government/s...

Good news from the UK on the influenza "K" variant. As expected, vaccine-derived antibodies show reduced effect against the K variant. But, preliminary real-world data shows that the vaccine is protecting against severe disease. Especially in kids! www.gov.uk/government/p...

Our (@paulinae.bsky.social, @mirandalubbers.bsky.social, & I) paper on social capital, is now posted at Annual Reviews - www.annualreviews.org/content/jour.... The thread below provides a bit of background on how this one came about, and a *rough* overview.

In the century leading up to 1975, nearly 6000 freighters went down in the Great Lakes. The Edmund Fitzgerald was the last. The last. In 50 years, not a single commercial freighter has been lost in the Great Lakes. Why? It's NOAA. Of course it's NOAA.

1/ A expected, the latest data update from Walgreens shows rising levels of general respiratory infections and also the first signs of influenza activity in the US! We're also seeing wastewater signals in Georgia rising, in support of what Walgreens is report.

1/ A concerning flu "variant" may be driving an early rise in cases in the UK. The virus is an H3N2, but has mutations that suggest it may evade some prior immunity. We're not seeing much activity in the US, but that may be changing. A 🧵 on what signals I'm watching. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Alan did a ton of work on our latest revision. Message of the story still holds: more data does not necessarily lead to better downstream performance for many models. Check out all our new analyses here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...