Ricard Solé
@ricardsole.bsky.social
3.6K followers 700 following 270 posts
Scientist & skeptic. Dad. Book addict. Pathologically curious. Origins and Evolution of Complexity, Synthetic Transitions, Liquid Brains, and Earth Terraformation. ICREA + SFI professor. Author. Secular humanist.
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ricardsole.bsky.social
I am working the night shift at @sfiscience.bsky.social. This time, I am working on synthetic minimal cognition, the thermodynamics costs of possible life codes, emergent engineering, and tipping points, and I am enjoying my spot at Cormac McCarthy's library (with fireplace).
ricardsole.bsky.social
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
ricardsole.bsky.social
It's just me or these guys look a lot like the bad guys from the Hunger Games?
ricardsole.bsky.social
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
ricardsole.bsky.social
He had a huge library (photo) and: "was a genius-level intellectual polymath with an insatiable curiosity. His interests ranged from quantum physics, which he taught himself (...), to whale biology, violins, obscure corners of French history in the early Middle Ages". He was an amazing guy.
ricardsole.bsky.social
This issue contains contributions from a broad range of disciplines, including philosophy, statistical physics, systems biology, thermodynamics, synthetic biology, geochemistry and artificial life. All started with a workshop at @sfiscience.bsky.social @julipereto.bsky.social @artemyte.bsky.social
ricardsole.bsky.social
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
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences: Vol 380, No 1936
royalsocietypublishing.org
Reposted by Ricard Solé
dieworkwear.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.
Jane Goodall reaches out and touches a small monkey.
ricardsole.bsky.social
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.
ricardsole.bsky.social
Congratulations to you both. This is a beautifully written piece that's really enjoyable to read. It brings evolution and agency together (not a trivial task) in such an exciting way and will surely inspire many others interested in agency, evolution and complexity.
ricardsole.bsky.social
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...
ricardsole.bsky.social
Una exposició per pensar el Temps des de la ciència, la cultura i la condició humana museuciencies.cat/exposicio_te...
ricardsole.bsky.social
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/
ricardsole.bsky.social
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...
Reposted by Ricard Solé
joneshowdareyou.bsky.social
Benedict Cumberbatch recites Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish’s “On this land there are reasons to live” poem at Together for Palestine. #GazaGenocide #GazaHolocaust
Reposted by Ricard Solé
manlius.bsky.social
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/...
Lost civilizations and the science of knowing what we don’t know
The most extraordinary claims need the most extraordinary evidence
open.substack.com
ricardsole.bsky.social
Can science ever escape its demons? Enjoying these three brilliant books by historian of science Jimena Canales. They remind us that science isn’t a straight line. History, time, imagination, they're all up for grabs. @gemmadlc.bsky.social @jordipinero.bsky.social @seanmcarroll.bsky.social
ricardsole.bsky.social
Will humans and AI coevolve in the future? As interdependencies grow, the two could come to function not merely as interacting agents, but as an integrated evolutionary individual. Check this paper in @pnas.org by @mkhochb.bsky.social & P Rainey @sfiscience.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
ricardsole.bsky.social
Our paper presents a mathematical and computational analysis of different circuits implemented by means of gene network motifs, including the problem of mass-spaced learning that was recently shown to be present in non-neural cells @koseskalab.bsky.social @jgojalvo.bsky.social
ricardsole.bsky.social
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...
Reposted by Ricard Solé
lmprida.bsky.social
Thank you so much @ricardsole.bsky.social I’ll always treasure those first steps with you! Chaos control remains my goal!!
ricardsole.bsky.social
Delighted that my friend @lmprida.bsky.social, a great scientist, has been named director of the new Cajal Neuroscience Center at @csic.es. Thirty years ago, as a graduate student in my Lab she published her first paper on chaos control in neural networks. I can't be more proud and happy.
ricardsole.bsky.social
How safe is your mind in a world flooded with junk information? Yuval Noah Harari warns that unlike past media, AI-driven networks never rest, blurring the boundaries between us and digital reality. He calls to preserve your autonomy as AI becomes more unpredictable  www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Ov...
ricardsole.bsky.social
How did differentiation evolve to allow for complex multicellular systems? In this @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social‬ paper, Boolean networks are used to answer long-standing questions in the evolution of cell type diversity. @wcratcliff.bsky.social d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/115269531/j....