Ricard Solé
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ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé
@ricardsole.bsky.social
3.9K followers 780 following 410 posts

Scientist & skeptic. Dad. Book addict. Pathologically curious. Origins and Evolution of Complexity, Synthetic Transitions, Liquid Brains, and Earth Terraformation. ICREA, SFI & CSH professor. Author. Secular humanist.

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ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · Nov 6
Back to @sfiscience.bsky.social joining the night shift (with some extra coffee) at the Cormac McCarthy's Library. Working on criticality + cancer, statistical physics of ant colonies, the Physarum Lagrangian, universal genetic codes, synthetic agriculture & hybrid agencies.
@jordiplam.bsky.social

Reposted by Stephen D. Murphy

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 12h
Preparing my talk in Heidelberg on Cognition Spaces for the @embo.org @embl.org conference, “Collectivity in Living Systems: Emergence, Function, and Evolution.”
An exciting program with outstanding speakers and a great chance to catch up with old colleagues. www.embl.org/about/info/c...

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 23h
I have two small closed microcosms at home that have already experienced several collapses. My mistake—I left them in the dark more than once, triggering major shifts. And yet, they persist, after two years: algae, small protozoa, and unseen bacteria continue to thrive.

Reposted by Juan Rocha

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 1d
Can randomness drive the evolution of microbiomes? In this paper, a new eco-evolutionary framework shows that environmental fluctuations can trigger host-level selection. Stochastic assembly isn’t noise: it’s the key.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @andreatabi.bsky.social @vmaull.bsky.social

Reposted by Ricard V. Solé

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 5d
La teoria del caos va revolucionar la ciència en mostrar que el món pot ser, alhora, profundament matemàtic i sorprenentment imprevisible. Aquesta conversa forma part del cicle d’activitats de l’exposició «La invenció del temps». museuciencies.cat/exposicio_te... @icreacommunity.bsky.social

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 5d
Podem predir el futur mitjançant les matemàtiques? Què ens diu la teoria del caos? Quins són els límits de la nostra capacitat de predir la complexitat? Parlarem amb Doyne Farmer, un dels pares de la teoria, i amb la matemàtica Eva Miranda @evamirandag.bsky.social
museuciencies.cat/activitats/2...

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 6d
As the authors say: "The discovery of this complex activity in a small ribozyme suggests that polymerase ribozymes may be more abundant in RNA sequence space than anticipated, thereby facilitating the emergence of self-replication."

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 6d
Could life have begun with simpler molecules than we once thought? A new paper in @science.org by @edogia.bsky.social shows that a tiny RNA catalyst can self-replicate itself, suggesting that life may have been easier to emerge than expected. Getting closer. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Reposted by Ricard V. Solé

pestilence4all.bsky.social
Pestilence @pestilence4all.bsky.social · 6d
It’s an RNA world. RNA is posited to be the first genetic material, arising 4 billion years ago. It can store information and act as an enzyme. Eventually, it duplicated its information into a more stable form, DNA.
A four panel comic, from left to right: 1960s LIFE IS BASED ON DNA, WHICH USES RNA TO MAKE PROTEINS THAT DO STUFF. 1980s ALSO, THE RNA DOES SOME STUFF ITSELF, WHICH IS WEIRD. 2000s THERE ARE 50 MANY KINDS OF RNA. IT'S DOING SO MUCH STUFF! 2020s LIFE IS A SEETHING MASS OF RNA THAT SOMETIMES USES DNA TO TAKE NOTES. WHAT DO THE PROTEINS DO? ERRANDS FOR RNA.

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 7d
What if we had a Rosetta Stone for brain oscillations—one framework to translate between models and scales?
In this paper lead by F Castaldo and @ruffini.bsky.social they build a simple, systematic ladder of neural mass models showing how diverse formalisms connect arxiv.org/pdf/2512.10982

Reposted by Cary L. Cooper, Ricard V. Solé, C. Christine Fair , and 1 more

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 8d
How do you grow a thousand-year-old tree without waiting a thousand years? As @interspecies.agency writes, ecologists are trying to build a kind of time machine, making younger trees acquire in decades the ecological richness that normally takes centuries. www.noemamag.com/how-to-build...

Reposted by Ricard V. Solé

Reposted by Ricard V. Solé

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 9d
Can we engineer cognition in aneural systems? What are the challenges and implications? Can synthetic biology be used to interrogate basal cognition? Our new paper with @jordiplam.bsky.social explores these questions using models of minimal gene circuits. Available here pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

Reposted by Ricard V. Solé

quantamagazine.bsky.social
Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 10d
“A bird with a 10-gram brain is doing pretty much the same as a chimp with a 400-gram brain,” said Onur Güntürkün, who studies brain structures at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. “How is it possible?”
Intelligence Evolved at Least Twice in Vertebrate Animals | Quanta Magazine
Complex neural circuits likely arose independently in birds and mammals, suggesting that vertebrates evolved intelligence multiple times.
www.quantamagazine.org

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 10d
My student @jordiplam.bsky.social just received an invitation from what appears to be a predatory journal. The prose is remarkable: part delirious flattery, part Victorian novel, and entirely committed to ensuring that the only conceivable reply is “yes.”

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 11d
This is a rather preposterous question.

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 11d
The fact that we might not be able yet to define it should never prevent us from make progress. If that were the case, biology would not make sense (we don't know how to define life). But, as with life, consciousness exists. That is a trivial fact.

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 11d
This is the entrance of one of the old buildings near my home in Barcelona. I can’t help thinking the architect might have been a fan of George Boole: just look at the pattern of zeros and ones in the columns. And the doors even remind me of a robot face… Low Kolmogorov complexity though.

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 11d
Why did consciousness evolve at all? A superb special issue of @royalsocietypublishing.org brings together experts across disciplines to explore the functions of consciousness and why it emerged in some species but not others. @tecumsehfitch.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/issue/3...

Reposted by Ricard V. Solé

Reposted by Ricard V. Solé

Reposted by Ricard V. Solé

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 12d
Could the logic of life be shaped by the architecture of biological circuitry? In this paper, @manlius.bsky.social shows how genetic, metabolic, and social networks can govern slow evolutionary dynamics in a unified nonequilibrium framework. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 13d
Grateful to our colleagues @ftmaestre.bsky.social and @vdlorenzo.bsky.social for inspiration and support. This work (a great adventure) grew out of many hours of discussion, coffee, and crowded blackboards and whiteboards.

Reposted by Vı́ctor de Lorenzo, Stephen D. Murphy

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 13d
Excited to share a new PhD thesis from my student and soon Dr @vmaull.bsky.social on synthetic ecosystems, preventing tipping points, and a new concept: emergent bioengineering. Very proud of this achievement, and thankful to @sfiscience.bsky.social, where many of these ideas came to life.

Reposted by Graeme S. Cumming, Juan Rocha

ricardsole.bsky.social
Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 13d
What causes tipping points in complex microbial ecosystems? Check this @pnas.org paper by @thilogross.bsky.social showing that cross-feeding networks create strong interdependencies & small structural changes can trigger abrupt collapses. @akhilesh-nandan.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....