Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Nicholas A. Christakis

@nachristakis.bsky.social

18K followers 560 following 820 posts

Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University. Sociologist. Network Scientist. Physician. Author of Apollo's Arrow; Blueprint; Connected; and Death Foretold. Director of the Human Nature Lab: https://humannaturelab.net .. more

Videos

Nicholas A. Christakis is a Greek American sociologist and physician known for his research on social networks and on the social, economic, biological, and evolutionary determinants of human welfare. He is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University, where he directs the Human Nature Lab. He is also the co-director of the Yale Institute for Network Science. .. more

Public Health 23%

Physics 18%

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Reposted by Nicholas A. Christakis

Adam Grant @adamgrant.bsky.social · 11h

Cursing is rarely a symbol of low class. It's often a mark of high authenticity.

Evidence: Swearing predicts higher rates of honesty and integrity. It signals a willingness to prize candor over courtesy.

A little profanity can show that you're being real and you do give a damn.

15 70 270

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 13h

Yes. Some people have less consistent preferences. ;-)

1 1

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 17h

In related work, in 2008, we studied whether a man has an increased risk of death when his ex-wife dies, comparable to when his current wife dies (as a test of homogamy) in a sample of one million Americans.

No, the death of an ex-wife has no discernible effect.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Wives and ex-wives: A new test for homogamy bias in the widowhood effect - Demography

Increased mortality following the death of a spouse (the “widowhood effect”) may be due to (1) causation, (2) bias from spousal similarity (homogamy), or (3) bias from shared environmental exposures. This article proposes new tests for bias in the widowhood effect by examining husbands, wives, and ex-wives in a longitudinal sample of over 1 million elderly Americans. If the death of an ex-wife has no causal effect on the mortality of her husband, then an observed association between the mortality of an ex-wife and her husband may indicate bias, while the absence of an effect of an ex-wife’s death on her husband’s mortality would discount the possibility of homogamy bias (and also of one type of shared-exposure bias). Results from three empirical tests provide strong evidence for an effect of a current wife’s death on her husband’s mortality yet no statistically signifi cant evidence for an effect of an ex-wife’s death on her husband’s mortality. These results strengthen the causal interpretation of the widowhood effect by suggesting that the widowhood effect is not due to homogamy bias to any substantial degree.

link.springer.com

1 2

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 17h

Do people have a “type” when it comes to their romantic partners’ personalities? A 2019 analysis of 332 Germans (159 men, 173 women) who had self-reports of personality available from two different partners during a 9-y longitudinal study indicates this is the case.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

www.pnas.org

2 3

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 1d

^injury prevention.

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 1d

The Trump administration feels that the USA doesn’t need people working on disease prevention and fires the whole office. The incompetence and damage to our nation is breathtaking.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/h...

Trump Administration Is Bringing Back Scores of C.D.C. Experts Fired in Error

www.nytimes.com

2 3 16

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 1d

Inventive and cool 2020 paper on the universality of facial expressions (and emotions): the occurrence of 16 expressions in 6M videos from 144 countries was examined using machine learning: facial expressions had distinct associations with a set of contexts. nature.com/articles/s41...
@nature.com

2 5

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 2d

The video captures the relocation due to the air-raid in Kyiv like an old-fashioned movie intermission, and the energy of the students was palpable. It was an incredible experience, and I was so impressed with everything I saw at KSE.

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 2d

I spoke at the Kyiv School of Economics last month, on "Social Artificial Intelligence" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtaX...) & "Social Network Interventions" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCnZ...).
The latter started in a big airy room but, half way in, an air raid forced relocation to Soviet bomb shelter.

Lecture by Nicholas A. Christakis "Social Network Interventions"

YouTube video by Kyiv School of Economics

www.youtube.com

1 10

Reposted by Nicholas A. Christakis

John Mullahy @johnmullahy.bsky.social · 2d

"afflicted with the malady of thought"

This excerpt from J.S. Mill's On Liberty is a bit long but so timely.

1 1 3

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 3d

Hope sure can write. :-)

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 4d

Trump: "We took the freedom of speech away because that's been through the courts and the courts said you have freedom of speech, but what has happened is when they burn a flag it agitates and irritates crowds."

850 1.8K 5K

Reposted by Nicholas A. Christakis

Complexity Science Hub @csh.ac.at · 4d

Why do humans live in large-scale societies organized as states? Peter Turchin's "The Great Holocene Transformation" analyzes data from 800+ societies to reveal that #warfare between groups drove humanity's transformation from small bands to complex civilizations. 👉https://shorturl.at/D457n

3 4

Reposted by Dean Eckles

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 4d

Super cool science: Parachutes are expensive and delicate to manufacture, which limits their use for humanitarian airdrops or drone delivery. Laser cutting a closed-loop kirigami pattern in a disc induces porosity and flexibility into an easily fabricated parachute. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Kirigami-inspired parachutes with programmable reconfiguration - Nature

A thin planar disc designed with appropriately patterned cuts transforms itself, due to air flow effects, into an effective parachute exhibiting good positional stability, regardless of its initial orientation.

www.nature.com

2 8 41

Reposted by Nicholas A. Christakis

Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 5d

🚨New WP!🚨

Structured AI Dialogues Can Increase Happiness and Meaning in Life

In a preregistered RCT, four psychology-grounded #AI chatbots improved well-being across several outcomes.

Co-authors: Jonas Schoene, Johannes Eichstaedt, Aadesh Salecha, Sonja Lyubomirsky

🧵👇

1 5 13

Reposted by Nicholas A. Christakis

NEJM.org @nejm.org · 5d

Plague is a high-consequence infectious disease with epidemic potential.

The latest video in our partnership with @glaucomflecken.bsky.social summarizes new research evaluating ciprofloxacin versus aminoglycoside–ciprofloxacin for bubonic plague in Madagascar. 👉 nej.md/DrG27

3 10 40

Reposted by Nicholas A. Christakis

Yale Data Science @yaledatascience.bsky.social · 6d

Join the Social Algorithms Workshop at Yale to learn how algorithms amplify ideas, and (sometimes) mislead us, organized by @jugander.bsky.social w/ talks by @brendannyhan.bsky.social & @informor.bsky.social. Use code sawitonX on last registration page for 25% off yalefds.swoogo.com/socialalgori...

1 2 3

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 6d

@cfcamerer.bsky.social wait doesn’t that violate the efficient markets hypothesis? ;-)

Reposted by Nicholas A. Christakis, Brendan Nyhan, Gavin L. Foster , and 5 more Nicholas A. Christakis, Brendan Nyhan, Gavin L. Foster, Robert C. Richards, Melanie C. Green, Alan Richardson, Mary L. Dudziak, Nathan P. Kalmoe

John Pfaff @johnpfaff.bsky.social · 8d

You.
Are.
Allowed.
To.
Insult.
The.
Police.

It’s a core First Amendment principle. This is utterly lawless behavior, for which there will be no (short-term) consequences.

That he does it so casually, as they are walking away, in front of cameras.

Rightly confident in his impunity.

“[t]he freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.”

330 4.1K 9.5K

Reposted by Nicholas A. Christakis, Catherine J. Frieman, Noel D. Johnson

Jennifer Ouellette @jenlucpiquant.bsky.social · 9d

Scientists revive old Bulgarian recipe to make yogurt with ants. Ants carry lactic and acetic acid bacteria that help coagulate milk, as well as formic acid to acidify it. They even partnered with Danish chefs to create three recipes using ant yogurt. arstechnica.com/science/2025...

Scientists revive old Bulgarian recipe to make yogurt with ants

Ants carry lactic and acetic acid bacteria that help coagulate milk, as well as formic acid to acidify it.

arstechnica.com

19 33 130

Reposted by Nicholas A. Christakis

Megan Ranney MD MPH @meganranney.bsky.social · 10d

“Combination vaccines were developed to reduce missed opportunities, increase coverage and minimize the trauma of multiple injections … Undoing that progress would put children at risk."

*ps, my editorial note: they are also SAFE

www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-s...

Trump's call to split up the MMR childhood vaccine revives long-settled debate

President Trump's suggestion that the combination measles, mumps and rubella vaccine should be separated marks a sharp break from decades of immunization practice.

www.cbsnews.com

5 56 150

Reposted by Nicholas A. Christakis, Gordon Hodson

Zoe Liberman @zoeliberman.bsky.social · 10d

Spread the word: I'm looking to recruit a PhD student for Fall 2026 to @ucsb.bsky.social! Reach out if you are applying this cycle and hoping to study infant and child social cognition, specifically expectations about friendship and/or groups. Bonus: live in paradise! And.. 1/3

UCSB Campus. Meadow in the foreground with Storke Tower and mountains in the distance

1 22 25

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 10d

On the other hand, I wholly agree that the graver and more pressing threat is the ascendant right-wing assault on our universities (shockingly backed at the highest levels of government at the moment!). Great verve, consistency of thought, and credibility is required to repulse this.

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 10d

Judging from his mischaracterization of some facts, and his non-engagement with actual content of words in the volume, I am not sure it's "gold." And, well, he lacks fortitude to be non-anonymous (so far as I can see?), whereas those he criticizes are public in their views. @rebeccasear.bsky.social

Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 11d

“ABC7 spoke to Pertissue Fisher, a woman who lives in the building. She said ICE agents took everyone in the building, including her, and asked questions later….’They was bringing the kids down, too, had them zip tied to each other.’”

It can’t happen here, you say. But it is happening.

ICE agents raid South Shore apartments; Trump says Chicago could become military training ground

ICE agents raided a South Shore apartment building overnight as the city braces for a possible military deployment.

abc7chicago.com

140 2.1K 3.3K

Reposted by Nicholas A. Christakis

Iain Thomson @iainthomson.bsky.social · 11d

The Jane Goodall Institute threatened to sue Gary Larson over this cartoon.

Goodall told them not to be so stupid, sold it on a tshirt, and wrote the introduction to The Far Side Gallery 5. Absolute legend.

3 63 180

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 11d

A giant of a scientist, Jane Goodall, has died. www.cnn.com/2025/10/01/e...

Conservationist Jane Goodall, whose work revolutionized the study of primates, has died | CNN

Jane Goodall, whose lifelong work as a primatologist helped broaden the world’s understanding of animal behavior and emotions, has died, her institute said Wednesday. She was 91.

www.cnn.com

1 2 18

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 11d

NB @curtlanglotz.bsky.social