iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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The Ramsey Lab @theramseylab.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Are you interested in the past, present & future of Artificial Life (ALife) as a scientific field? 🚨 We are hosting an interdisciplinary minisymposium this December, so send us your work & come along! Please share widely! 🔗 hiw.kuleuven.be/clps/events/... #philsci #academicsky #evobio #AI #HPS

Promotional graphic for a mini-symposium titled “Life As It Could Be: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Artificial Life,” taking place 7–8 December 2026 at Aula Symbiosis, BioScience Center, KU Leuven. The text appears over a blue-and-orange honeycomb-like cellular pattern.

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Charles Mullon @charlesmullon.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Looking for an Associate Prof position? Interested in behavioural ecology & cultural evolution? Come join us at the Dpt of Ecology and Evolution in Lausanne🇨🇭 @dee-unil.bsky.social @unil.bsky.social! Great department & great place to live. Pls RP. Apply here: wwwfbm.unil.ch/releve/appli...

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Gaurav Athreya @gauravathreya.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

wanna read the latest overview of “internal evolutionary conflicts” — scenarios where genes spread despite being organism-deleterious? and wanna learn how to model them? look at our new preprint! we introduce unifying ideas, and try hard to write accessibly. small 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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Dr Nick @nmwilkinson.eurosky.social · 21/05/2026

Has anyone tested the hypothesis that the brain has a 'code'?

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Dimitris Nakos @nakdim.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Articles written by people who know what they're talking about are always important to read.

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Can we engineer ecosystems before they collapse? In our new perspective on "emergent bioengineering" we argue that the key challenge is not simply controlling living systems, but designing interventions that can adapt and sustain functional ecological networks. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Yogi Jaeger @yoginho.spore.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/05/2026

I find this highly unlikely. What is missing from biology today is a good, actionable theory of the organism. This is a gaping hole in the midst of the discipline, and without it, we cannot understand the nature of life, no matter how many new methodologies we invent, and however many data sets […]

spore.social

Original post on spore.social

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Institut Natura e Teoria ※ Pireneus (INTP) @intp-science.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

📢 Applications are open for the 4th INTP Autumn School “Syntheses in Theoretical Community #Ecology” A week-long school designed for researchers who want to step back and build a broader, more synthetic and critical view of the field. 👉 Full details & application: intp.science/en/autumn26.... 🌍🌐🧪

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Life in the computer? Before the internet and Alife, John Conway was already watching strange digital creatures emerge from a few simple rules in his Game of Life. These are the notes he sent to Martin Gardner, who made it a famous one in @sciam.bsky.social Check here www.ibiblio.org/lifepatterns...

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Complexity Cat 🐱 @amahury.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Agreed! We need philosophy to ground our conceptions of causation, emergence, and mechanism in biological contexts. A good starting point is to conceive life as a process, rather than as a substance, as we have been doing for centuries. academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

academic.oup.com

Biology Needs Philosophy, But What Philosophy?

Abstract. Philosophy of biology has the potential to contribute to biology by improving scientific reasoning. However, this potential is largely unrealized

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Dimitris Nakos @nakdim.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

We are definitely NOT machines... In _any_ way

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Lana Sinapayen @sinalana.eurosky.social · 25/03/2026

The International Society for Artificial Life is offering 5$ memberships to a limited number of people located in low/middle income countries. If you have been interested in the membership benefits (alife.org/membership/) but cannot afford it, apply here: alife.org/2026/03/24/n... #ALife

alife.org

New ISAL Global Membership Program Pilot

Overview ISAL has core values of being an inclusive and supportive community as well as making the field viable for junior and early career scholars to succeed and thrive in. We recognize that the cos...

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Dimitris Nakos @nakdim.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

I haven't personally collaborated with the team, but from what little I know them, it will be a great great opportunity to have LOTS of fun and do some top tier science! Don't lose the opportunity ^^ Share and enjoy!

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Matteo Farinella (he/him) @matteofarinella.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Have you heard people identify as left-brained or right-brained? It’s a common myth that people’s personalities are tied to a dominant side of their brain, but the truth isn’t that simple. #BrainAwarenessWeek #BrainWeek

Brain Awareness Week - Right/Left Brain myth - illustration by Matteo Farinella

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Vera Straetmanns @yavannakemi.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

This semester, we will be reading selected chapters from "Everything flows", edited by @djnicholson.bsky.social and John Dupré in our Reading Group. All interested are welcome to join us at @ruhr-uni-bochum.de (room NDEF04/346). If needed, we can also arrange hybrid meetings. #HPBio #PhDSky

Poster for this semester's reading group. We meet every first Wednesday at 4:15pm (CET) at Ruhr University Bochum (room NDEF04/346). If you need more information (abstract of the book, topics of the individual dates, information about the moodle course etc.), please e-mail me! vera.straetmanns[at]rub.de

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Dimitris Nakos @nakdim.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Anyone who can recommend a good book in #eco-evo #ecoevo or #ecology and #evolution? Preferably theoretical :) Thank you~ #science #sciencetalk

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Institut Natura e Teoria ※ Pireneus (INTP) @intp-science.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

⏳ Two weeks left to apply to our Summer School, and benefit from the early-bird rate! Don’t miss this opportunity to join us for a week of inspiring lectures and discussions with an exceptional community of researchers - all set in the beautiful Pyrenees ⛰️ ☀️ We look forward to welcoming you! 🧪🌐

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Bram van Dijk 🏳️‍🌈 @bramvandijk.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

In case you missed it: our review titled "Spatial structure: shaping the ecology and evolution of microbial communities" is out! 🚨 Let me hit you with some highlights on why spatial structure matters. (and why you should care!) Sharing is appreciated 🙏 🧵👇 doi.org/10.1093/fems...

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Charlotte Bunnenberg @cbunnenberg.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

I'm extremely grateful to have received the Anne Keymer prize for my oral presentation at the BES annual meeting 2025! A big thank you to the @britishecologicalsociety.org and everyone who came along to the talk—it was an absolute honour to have the chance to share my research with you all!

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Yogi Jaeger @yoginho.spore.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/12/2025

RE: spore.social/@yoginho/1157364865934… #39c3 Please help make this workshop happen! pretalx.c3voc.de/39c3-haecksen-work… All we need is one ticket for me, if someone has one to spare.... 🙏

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James Lea @jamesmlea.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

🚨POSTDOC JOB ALERT🚨 We have an exciting opportunity for a 2 year postdoc on remote sensing of icebergs and marine terminating glaciers. See the link below for more info! Please spread widely, and feel free to email me with any Q's :) tinyurl.com/2jjcmea9

Photo of a marine terminating glacier in Greenland with icebergs in front of it

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Dimitris Nakos @nakdim.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

I LOVE zines! I LOVE that people always find ways to share their ideas far and wide! Expression and worries and rising up should and can't be silenced :)

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

One of my favorite things in class - last day of term in my intro comics class, I do a whirlwind recap of every single thing we did over the term - then I have Ss each sketch out a main takeaway from the course & take turns explaining & sticking down to big sheet. It’s a blast! Some highlights 1/3

A bunch of drawn stickers about comics stuck to sheets of paper on the floor

Closeup on a student drawn sticker - this one about space

Closeup on a student drawn sticker - this one about analysis

Closeup on a student drawn sticker - this one about making stuff

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Louica Philipp @louzula.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Hey fellow wizards, I'll be at the #BES Annual Meeting in #Edinburgh next week! If you're interested in food web and metacommunity models, emergence of self-organised patterns and eco-evo feedbacks, please join the >> Theoretical/Computational Ecology << session on Tuesday afternoon 🦊

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Cinephilia & Beyond @cinephiliabeyond.org · 22/06/2025

C&B has been dying a slow death for months, and it seems that no one cares. Support articles like the one below; soon they won't be anywhere on the internet. For the last time, we are asking you to help us survive; please share this link with all your friends: cinephiliabeyond.org/donate2024/

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J. Marshall Smith @jmarshallsmith.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Hey, I know we're all trying to weather an idiotic societal collapse, but do you want to preorder my new book or buy the original cover art drawing? I'm looking for another job(s?) but in the meantime I'm selling off originals to try to keep the lights on.

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Dimitris Nakos @nakdim.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

Why is it that evolutionary biology these days is 99% bioinformatics and *omics and 1% everything else (more abstract, mathematical, even wetlab oriented)? :/ At least based on what I see anyway... Maybe I'm wrong. If I am please say so! :) It'll make me a bit happier :)

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Dimitris Nakos @nakdim.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Being there was so so so so damn great!!! :D Highly encouraged to chill, be in a cool scientific atmosphere and talk with people who know a LOT on science, open to new ideas, cook AMAZING vegetarian/vegan food and are nerds to the bone (warhammer, games, manga, anime, BD)! (There's a donkey around)

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Lana Sinapayen @sinalana.eurosky.social · 24/10/2025

A request for biologists (reposts appreciated): do you have any images of "reduction spots" like those in the Mars biosignature paper, but on Earth and 100% confirmed to be caused by life? Also welcome: pic of any "leopard spots" patterns caused by colonies of organisms.

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J. Marshall Smith @jmarshallsmith.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Kurt Vonnegut. I've been enjoying drawing folks favorite writers.

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Dimitris Nakos @nakdim.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

This is looking extremely promising! It just needs more and more people! Be one of them! \o/

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

Can a single cell learn? Even without a brain, some microbes show simple forms of cognition. Can this basal cognition be engineered? Check our new paper with @jordiplam.bsky.social on the minimal synthetic circuits & their cognitive limits. @drmichaellevin.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Louica Philipp @louzula.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

What a good start to the week: My first paper just got published in Oikos! 🌱 "Metacommunity connectance and emergent patterns drive diversity via spatial eco-evolutionary feedback" with Christian Guill and Toni Klauschies doi.org/10.1002/oik.... #ecology #phdlife #phdchat

Schematic figure from Philipp et al. 2025: Top left panel shows a satellite photo of multiple ponds in a landscape, top right panel shows the plankton community within a single pond as scheme drawing; the bottom left panel shows how the habitat (pond) structure is abstraced to a habiat network; the bottom right panel shows how the local community structure is abstracted to an aggregated food web model. Altogether, this 'trophic metacommunity' can show self-organisation that appear as biomass differences between habitats (denoted as differently shaded nodes of green and blue in the bottom left panel)

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Liam Wong @liamwong.com · 29/09/2025

Tokyo

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The Ramsey Lab @theramseylab.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

New Element in the Philosophy of Biology series—free to download until October 6! Walter Veit examines the role of models in evolutionary biology: their types, testability, and interrelations 👇📕 www.cambridge.org/core/element... #philsci #HPBio #evobio

Book cover of “Modelling Evolution” by Walter Veit, in the Cambridge Elements: The Philosophy of Biology series. Against a black background, the title is surrounded by Ernst Haeckel’s illustrations of marine organisms—radial, symmetrical forms in vivid blues, oranges, reds, and greens.

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

How can we build a general theory of mutualistic communities? After five years, we finally completed a new Neutral Theory of Cooperation that is fully solved analytically and displays remarkable properties @jordipinero.bsky.social @artemyte.bsky.social @manlius.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2506.09737

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

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...

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Bram van Dijk 🏳️‍🌈 @bramvandijk.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Does anyone know a gene in E. coli that duplicated "fairly recently", as to compare and contrast it's sequence divergence with that found in mobile elements? #sciencesky #microsky

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

my statement on Ai from the mini-comic I'm making as syllabus for a new class I'm teaching this fall. It's simple, but I pretty much said all I have to say on it - it robs you of decisions and struggle - and the joy of being surprised. It robs you of learning...

a snippet of a mini-comic, at top - straight line stretches from point A to B. Immediately below, same dot at A, then becomes a curving, meandering line that winds through the page and ends at a point with rays and a question mark emanating from it. Text reads: "Nothing can do this for you - that robs you of experience and conflates answers with learning. Rather, it's all the decisions you make along the way, the mistakes, struggles, and surprises! These pathways you create - this is learning.

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Christian Kost @kostchristian.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

I am excited to announce that the position of a senior postdoc (3 +3 years) in the field of theoretical biology is available in my group. The position provides the opportunity to closely interact with experimentalists and develop own research projects. Please RT. Details 👇: shorturl.at/iiiOv

shorturl.at

116 FB 5 Research Assistant (m/f/d) field of Theoretical Ecology and Evolution or Computational Biology: Uni Osnabrück

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

Pleased to see the mention of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi in @rboyle31.bsky.social’s delightful & engrossing book “Our Moon”! I talk about his influence on Copernicus in Unflattening & in this standalone piece for the Boston Globe. Our Moon is a great book! Check it out! spinweaveandcut.com/nytimes-glob...

Text from book: again over the course of the month. He knew that the Moon occasionally blocks the Sun, demonstrating that the Moon revolves around Earth. "In expounding on the Moon's motion, he wrote, apparently without irony, "I do not disagree with the ancients' belief that it takes place around the Earth."
On March 12, 1529, Copernicus witnessed the Moon block the planet Venus from view: "I saw Venus beginning to be occulted by the Moon's dark side midway between both horns at one hour after sunset," he wrote in On the Revolutions. He used this occultation, and others from the star catalogs of antiquity, to deduce the motions of Venus. He was beginning to realize that Ptolemy was wrong about more than just the Moon's weirdly tilted deferent. He began to understand the truth: that the immobile Earth is not at the center of a whirling universe, but that we inhabit but one of many planets, which all revolve around the Sun.
Historians have long tried to figure out why Copernicus was struck with this revelation, which was completely unique as far as he knew.* Some modern scholars suggest that Copernicus knew of research from thirteenth-century Islamic astronomers who were members of the so-called Maragha School. These astronomers worked at Maragha Observatory in what is now northern Iran, under the leadership of the Persian polymath Nasir al-Din al-Tusi.

Text from book: Al-Tusi and others came up with planetary models that eased some of Ptolemy's especially strained notions, including detailed geometrical solutions for the orbit of the Moon. Some of the math behind these models also appears in Copernicuss treatise, suggesting Copernicus might have known of the Maragha School's work. Although scholars still debate this history, it seems reasonable to assume that if Bessarion and Regiomontanus introduced Almagest to Europe, then other people brought different geometrical and mathematical works from the Arab-speaking world, too.'
We will probably never know; the chain of custody of such ideas may be all but impossible to recover. For his part, Copernicus writes that he was just bothered by Ptolemy's inelegance and, moreover, the system did not seem sufficiently divine.
"After long reflection, I began to be annoyed that the movements of the world machine, created for our sake by the best and most system atic Artisan of all, were not understood with greater certainty by the philosophers, he wrote in his book's dedication,

Cover to Our Moon. Wolves howling at the moon which is above the title

Single page comic - dealing with flatland, how we gain perspective and how learning from other cultures expands our perspective - in this case Copernicus learning from Al-Tusi across centuries and cultures

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Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Applications are open for SFI's 2026 Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships If you’ve recently earned a Ph.D. in any scientific field and want to pursue independent, transdisciplinary research, consider applying. Deadline: October 1, 2025 Apply here: santafe.edu/sfifellowship

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でんか @k-hermit.com · 23/07/2025

A Kindergarten of Squid

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Dimitris Nakos @nakdim.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

It should not be STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)... It should be STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, ART and Mathematics). Steam sounds much better, and art would improve and expand everyone's perception, creativity and ideas so so much more!

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Bram van Dijk 🏳️‍🌈 @bramvandijk.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Come join us at TBB in simulating the sh*t out of everything related to biology! :) (in this case, evo-devo/ animal development in general!)

Screenshot of "The Martian" where the main protagonist says "I"m gonna have to science the shit out of this"

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