iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Manlio De Domenico @manlius.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Memories of being a kid in the ’90s, watching the ✨ night sky, mixed w: the scientific knowledge I gained later You can’t imagine how happy I am about this piece. And about the cover too: hours to take that picture of the Orion's Belt @ricardsole.bsky.social manlius.substack.com/p/but-where-...

manlius.substack.com

But where is everybody?

Life, intelligence and the strange problem of meeting each other in a very large Universe

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

How are extinction, evolution and time related? Come to our new conversation hosted by @museuciencies.cat with @amnh.org Niles Eldredge and @mncn-csic.bsky.social Susanna Manrubia. From Darwin's reflections, deep time and the fossil record to cancer, network science & pandemics. @nilese.bsky.social

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Princeton University Press @princetonupress.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

A scientific exploration of the varied forms, origins, and meanings of death. Endless Endings by @ricardsole.bsky.social is now available worldwide. Learn more: buff.ly/3C7MAtE

Endless Endings: The Many Forms of Death and What They Teach Us About Life by Ricard Solé

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Dies per recordar. Catalunya, 1 d'Octubre de 2017. Vàrem ser nosaltres. Nosaltres sols.

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Dana Goldstein @danagoldstein.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Most American students are already using A.I. to generate writing. I took a step back to ask: What does cognitive science tell us about what writing *does* for us? Is there a way to teach and learn alongside this technology without degrading skills? www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/u...

nytimes.com

What Do Students Lose When They Stop Writing? (Gift Article)

Educators are worried that many students can no longer write essays without A.I. And it’s costing more than just grammar skills.

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Asimov Press @asimovpress.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

New Essay: Great Leaps in Biological Theory Two of biology’s greatest theories completely predate direct experimental evidence. In this article, @ulkar_aghayeva traces their origins and completes our mini-series on theory in biology. Read: press.asimov.com/articles/gr...

press.asimov.com

Great Leaps in Biological Theory

Two of biology’s greatest theories completely predate direct experimental evidence. Tracing their origins could help us understand how to make the next ones.

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Diari ARA @ara.cat · 26/09/2026

El dia que va arribar al laboratori i va veure que els ratolins es tornaven a moure, Zaida Álvarez (Barcelona, 1984) no va poder evitar estremir-se. Enrere quedaven més ...

ara.cat

La bioenginyera que vol tornar la mobilitat a persones amb lesions medul·lars

La investigadora de l’IBEC dissenya biomaterials i models de medul·la humana per aconseguir que les neurones tornin a connectar-se després d’una lesió

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

What is the historical origin of neural networks, from the eary ideas on mind-body to modern Ai systems? Check this video by @bingbrunton.bsky.social (and her great Youtube Channel!) for an excellent explanation. www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKpN...

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

What if the origin of life was not a single transition, but a cascade of them? This paper by J. Aguirre & co offers a systems view of how complexity may have emerged across chemical, informational & ecological levels. @manlius.bsky.social @brionesci.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

We are very happy to announce the launch of Systems Ecology @systems-ecology.bsky.social, a new independent, diamond open-access journal dedicated to advancing systems-level understanding in ecology. systems-ecology.org/index.php/se Check the Founding editorial! systems-ecology.org/index.php/se...

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Could smarter AI agents make a collective less stable? Check this 1989 paper on computational ecosystems showing that clever local decisions can generate chaos, while diversity can stabilize it. With AI agents, these pioneering insights deserve renewed attention. journals.aps.org/pra/abstract...

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Where are all the intermediate forms between animals & plants? Our new paper with @jordiplam.bsky.social suggests evolution can split sharply between sessile, photosynthetic and mobile, sensing strategies. If so, what does this imply for claims of plant intelligence? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

La IA como un virus cognitivo: comentario en @lavanguardia.com acerca de nuestra investigación reciente @ruffini.bsky.social @francesca-castaldo.bsky.social @sfelena.bsky.social @brigan.bsky.social www.lavanguardia.com/vida/2026091...

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I’m getting a little tired of seeing dozens of social-media posts with Sam Altman’s face and the line “OpenAI solved the Millennium Problem.” Tired of billionaires who know nothing being cast as geniuses. And tired of low-quality journalism talking about “how AI solved...”

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Has AI solved the Navier–Stokes problem? Not quite. The crucial ideas came from mathematicians, while LLMs helped extend and verify them. AI may transform mathematical research, but the hype obscures the leading role of humans. (below is my drawing, not AI) www.science.org/content/arti...

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Timely to re-read Asimov’s robot stories: despite the Three Laws seemingly making everything predictable, things go wrong in unexpected ways. The source is context: environment, human behaviour, and the collective dynamics that emerge when robots interact. Sounds familiar?

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Is there an ecology of languages? Can physics help to understand their universal properties? Yes. As species, they rise and fall, become extinct, evolve & compete. Here's our paper @royalsocietypublishing.org @brigan.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/1004.4528 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

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Princeton University Press @princetonupress.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

In Endless Endings, @ricardsole.bsky.social explores the differing meanings of death in varied forms, reflecting on questions that are pushing forward the frontiers of scientific understanding. Out now (29 September UK pub). Read a free preview of this fascinating book here: buff.ly/WMNZHYh

Endless Endings: The Many Forms of Death and What They Teach Us About Life by Ricard Solé. A scientific exploration of the varied forms, origins, and meanings of death.

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Can AI spread like a virus and erode cognitive autonomy? Our new paper models how LLM adoption can cross tipping points, triggering runaway dependence and tech lock-in, suggesting routes to "cognitive immunization". arxiv.org/abs/2609.03344 @ruffini.bsky.social @francesca-castaldo.bsky.social

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Are AI agents really building “civilisations,” or are we turning a security incident into science fiction? Here, @manlius.bsky.social examines how anthropomorphic language transforms unexpected machine behaviour into stories of agency, conspiracy, and rebellion manlius.substack.com/p/propaigand...

manlius.substack.com

PropAIganda: from AI incident to AI mythology

How a remarkable cybersecurity experiment became a story about civilizations, conspiracies and secret swarms

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Cancer evolves toward genomic instability, but how far can it go? Using a new class of model, our new paper identifies a critical boundary beyond which tumors collapse, suggesting new therapeutic strategies. @frazambelli.bsky.social @guimaguade.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

"Solé reveals a paradox: death is not merely life’s opposite but also one of its organizing forces, a constant cycle of removal and renewal". Delighted to see my new @princetonupress.bsky.social book on the @newyorker.com book review list. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

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Manlio De Domenico @manlius.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

The next time someone pretends to enlighten you about ancient and lost civilizations building Giza pyramids to match the Orion's Belt, you can tell them this story. manlius.substack.com/p/a-sky-full...

manlius.substack.com

A sky full of Gizas

Why Orion’s Belt looks special. Until you let the rest of the sky compete.

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Admirable Women @admirablewomen.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Virologist/molecular biologist Dr. Flossie Wong-Staal altered the trajectory of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. First to clone HIV-1 & complete its genetic mapping, directly leading to life-saving antiviral drug cocktails. Most-cited female scientist of the 1980s. Born #OTD in 1946. #WomenInSTEM

A black-and-white portrait of Dr. Flossie Wong-Staal (1946–2020), the pioneering Chinese-American virologist who first cloned HIV-1 and mapped its genome. Sitting in her research laboratory, she faces forward with a composed, direct, and confident expression. Her dark hair is styled in a short, neat bob, and she wears long, slender dangling earrings. Over a dark, patterned blouse, she wears a crisp white laboratory coat. She rests her left forearm on a lab counter beside her, while her right hand holds a dark binder resting on her lap. The background shows a busy lab setting filled with shelves of scientific glassware, chemical bottles, and equipment, all slightly out of focus to draw attention to her. The composition places her slightly off-center, capturing an professional and scholarly mood that underscores her historical significance as a leading figure in molecular biology during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis.

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European Space Agency @esa.int · 10/08/2026

🆕 This NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope image shows planetary nebula NGC 2392, nicknamed the 'Lion Nebula'. This near- and mid-infrared composite image reveals the complex structure of the nebula 🧪🔭 esawebb.org/images/weic2... @science.esa.int @stsci.edu

$Planetary nebula NGC 2392, also called the Lion Nebula, against the black background of space. The nebula is in the centre, circular in shape, and looks like a male lion’s head. In the very centre is a small, pinkish-white circle with eight-point diffraction spikes, a white dwarf star. Surrounding the star are light purple-pink cavernous bubbles and shell-like rings. The bubbles and shells collectively form an oval with two small, wide arcs near the top, reminiscent of a lion’s face and its ears. What appears to be extended outward from the lion’s face is a thick ring of purple-blue material. The width of the ring is consistent throughout and resembles a mane. The area closest to the lion’s face looks cloudy, while the edges of the mane look like there are clumps of dust with comet-like tails and strands. In the background are distant galaxies and stars. Some galaxies appear as small yellow and orange points of light and others with visible spiral structures. A couple of the stars have diffraction spikes.$

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Does time flow differently inside an embryo? A new universal law reveals that, across animal species, early cell cycles slow according to the same hyperbolic pattern and even predicting the onset of gastrulation. @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social @embl.org check the paper: arxiv.org/pdf/2605.13234

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Do machines “die”? What does that mean? And why can the death of a machine affect us deeply? In my new @princetonupress.bsky.social book, I explore these questions within the landscape of human–machine interactions and consider what AI may bring in the future. press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

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MFCarter @mfcarter.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Sequoia National Park in California

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Admirable Women @admirablewomen.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Computer scientist Margaret Hamilton coined the term “software engineer.” She directed the Software Engineering Division at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab & led development of the on-board flight software for NASA’s Apollo Guidance Computer. She was born #OTD in 1936 & turns 90 today! #WomenInSTEM

Two side-by-side black-and-white photographs of pioneering computer scientist Margaret Hamilton (born August 17, 1936). The left panel features a mature, close-up portrait where Hamilton gazes directly at the viewer with a serene, confident, and reflective expression, framed by her long, dark, slightly silvering hair. The right panel is a famous archival photograph showing a younger Hamilton standing indoors next to a towering stack of bound paper binders containing the Apollo Guidance Computer source code, which she led the development of at MIT. She is smiling broadly and wears a striped, long-sleeved mini dress with dark Mary Jane shoes and glasses, resting her hand proudly on top of the massive column of printed code. The overall composition contrasts her youthful triumph with her enduring legacy, capturing an optimistic, intellectually rigorous mood that highlights her monumental contributions to space exploration.

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Can AI discover General Relativity? No, not yet. A provocative new paper argues that LLMs can master induction and deduction, but not the crucial abductive “jump” that allows us to invent entirely new principles. A fascinating question about the limits of AI openreview.net/challenge?re...

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Feral Millennial Communists of Late Stage Capitalism @feralcommie.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Scientists discover things. Engineers design things. Workers build things. Millions of us make all of this possible. Then one bloke owns it all, so apparently he created the wealth, and gets to take a share of EVERYTHING. Amazing system. Tear it down. Seize the stuff.

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Ian Quayle @ianhquayle.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Isn't it strange that the whole world believes scientists when they predict a solar eclipse with microsecond accuracy, but not when they predicted the existential threat of global heating due to the emission of greenhouse gases.

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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

In my column for @thenewworldmag.bsky.social this week, I look at the shitshow that is the "trial" of Anthony Fauci, and say that it needs to draw condemnation from the scientific community in the strongest terms. It's Stalinist stuff. www.thenewworld.co.uk/philip-ball-...

thenewworld.co.uk

The grotesque show trial of Anthony Fauci

The White House’s chief medical adviser was not perfect during Covid, but science must resist his persecution by conspiracy-deranged Republicans

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Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

The dismantling of science/education is up there with the erosion of international trust as long-lasting disaster legacies of the Trump administration that will not be reversed any time soon.

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Children's Bookshelf @pwkidsbookshelf.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

‘I hate what AI is doing to the minds and happiness of the young’: Katherine Rundell on the view from the classroom | The Guardian buff.ly/ReFQRso

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Euronews @euronews.com · 10/08/2026

The Prado Museum unveils "El Prado in the Light of the Eclipse", an audiovisual work using AI and digital art to show how an eclipse reshapes its iconic paintings.

l.euronews.com

Prado Museum reimagines masterpieces in solar eclipse light

The Prado Museum unveils "El Prado in the Light of the Eclipse", an audiovisual work using AI and digital art to show how an eclipse reshapes its iconic paintings.

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

A slide from a 2018 talk of mine on tipping points. That year, a climate report warned that we might be approaching critical turning points within 12 years. Everything suggests we are getting closer. Action is needed across science, engineering and policy. edition.cnn.com/2018/10/07/w...

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Just four years ago, intelligent humanoid robots, robot-driven wars or thinking and talking machines able to mirror us still belonged largely to science fiction. No AGI yet, but the cultural and psychological shock wave of AI is already spreading fast. How far are we from Asimov’s dreams?

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 23/07/2026

Hong Wang, who proved the three-dimensional Kakeya set conjecture, has just won the Fields Medal, making her the third woman in the award’s 90-year history to receive math’s highest honor. Read our profile: www.quantamagazine.org/hong-wang-wi...

quantamagazine.org

Hong Wang Wins 2026 Fields Medal, the Third Woman Ever | Quanta Magazine

Focus, commitment, and insight resulted in a “once in a century” proof. Hong Wang is now just the third woman to win a Fields Medal.

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

My column on how capital becomes a death cult. Faced with a choice between profit and human life, the radical right chooses profit. Then it tries to persuade us that mass death is what we want. It's the new phase of climate denial: accept your fate, earthlings. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.com

Murderous heat, an endangered food supply, decimated landscapes: embrace the Mediterranean life | George Monbiot

As climate disaster stares us in the face, the radical right says ‘Embrace the Mediterranean life’. Embrace death, more like it, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

What does it mean for a human being to die? How is death connected to different levels/types of consciousness -or its absence? Rather than treating these as separate scenarios, a space of consciousness can help reveal their relationships, as I discuss in my new @princetonupress.bsky.social book.

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Can we engineer longer lives without also increasing cancer risk? There is no magic trick, but experiments in mice show that combining telomerase with extra tumour-suppressor genes can extend lifespan while keeping cancer at bay. One example from my new @princetonupress.bsky.social book.

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