Cooperation by non-kin during birth underpins sperm whale social complexity We quantitatively document a sperm whale birth event, revealing collective support behaviors across kinship lines. Using high-resolution drone footage, computer vision, and multiscale network analysis...

Amazing!
Congrats to @lordgrilo.bsky.social @maximelca.bsky.social Alaa Maalouf, Joseph DelPreto, and all the authors
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Description of a collaborative sperm whale birth and shifts in coda vocal styles during key events - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Description of a collaborative sperm whale birth and shifts in coda vocal styles during key events

Thanks Lorenzo! Glad you enjoy it :)
There's also a companion paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Explore moment-by-moment of the most in-depth documentation of any cetacean birth in the new CETI paper, “Description of a collaborative sperm whale birth and shifts in coda vocal styles during key events,” published in @natureportfolio.nature.com’s Scientific Reports: bit.ly/4bIVZKc

By: Alaa Maalouf, Joseph DelPreto, @maximelca.bsky.social, @poetz.bsky.social, Jacob Andreas, Antonio Torralba, Shane Gero, @lordgrilo.bsky.social, Daniela Rus, David F. Gruber.

@csail.mit.edu, @northeasternu.bsky.social, @carleton.ca, @baruch.cuny.edu

A sperm whale was born, and we were lucky enough to witness it with @projectceti.bsky.social. Read about it below, and go watch the videos! 🐳

@science.org: bit.ly/4bIKkeo

Limited thermal tolerance in tropical insects and its genomic signature - Nature A survey of tropical insect populations and thermal tolerance limits indicates that species from lowland areas have low capacity to survive increased temperatures, and that thermal tolerance is limite...

Looks like a fundamental study and approach ... Limited thermal tolerance in tropical insects and its genomic signature. Insects at high elevations utilize plasticity to cope with rising temperatures, whereas lowland species have limited plastic abilities. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪🌐

Clonal-aggregative multicellularity tuned by salinity in a choanoflagellate - Nature The choanoflagellate Choanoeca flexa forms motile and contractile cell monolayers purely clonally, purely aggregatively or through a combination of both processes depending on environmental conditions.

A study in Nature shows that the single-celled form of a tiny, aquatic organism can turn into a multicellular version by three different routes. The discovery adds insight to the possible origins of multicellular life, suggesting a previously unrecognized degree of flexibility. 🧪

Filamentous growth everywhere! It is really fascinating that no matter if you are the fungus that grows as a "mold" in bread or on decomposing wood, in very unrelated lineages; the trademark is filamentous network growth!

Nat. Rev. Phys.: Collective dynamics on higher-order networks
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42254-025-00916-3

What's new since the first preprint version?

- analytical solutions for the case of hyperrings
- many more datasets: now 60, available through @xgi.bsky.social
- randomization procedures to test the effect of structural properties

Go check them out!

3/

We use a cost function based on information theory and diffusion processes.

In brief, some empirical systems require higher-order structure, but pairwise models are sufficient for some others.

2/

When should we favour a model with higher-order interactions over classical pairwise ones?

"Reducibility of higher-order networks from dynamics" is now out in @natcomms.nature.com

Paper: rdcu.be/e3tH4
Code: t.ly/pdELP
w/ @lgajo.bsky.social A. Ghavasieh @fede7j.bsky.social @manlius.bsky.social
🧵1/

The final version of "Reducibility of higher-order networks from dynamics" is finally out in Nature Communications! 👇👇👇

Why does life explore so few of the forms it could possibly take? Using fractal descriptors, this #scienceadvances paper shows that Earth’s biosphere clusters around simple shapes, reflecting deep evolutionary constraints. @artemyte.bsky.social @manlius.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

Group Science: The Open Source Study of Higher-order Networks With XGI | SIAM The CompleX Group Interactions (XGI) software package offers analytical tools, tutorials, and documentation for higher-order network science research.

We wrote a little something! @nwlandry.bsky.social and I talk about how new software to study networks with groups (like @xgi.bsky.social !) can help interdisciplinary collaborations tackle old questions from social ontology and the science of groups.

www.siam.org/publications...

The CENTURI PhD Call 2026 is still ongoing. Applications are open until the end of the month, on January 28th!

Visit centuri-livingsystems.org/recruitment/ to apply.

#PHD #CENTURI

You can already accept all tracked changes of selected text! So just need to select all :)

One week left to apply to the UVA Biology PhD program! If you or someone you know are interested in contagion from a complex systems perspective, please reach out! I'm looking for a grad student! bio.as.virginia.edu/how-apply-gr...

Lots of higher-order interactions at the joint @beyondtheedge.network and RUNES workshop at AMU in Marseille this week. Thanks to @alainbarrat.bsky.social and @lordgrilo.bsky.social!

Final week to apply for the 2026 SFI Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships

If you're an early-career scholar and passionate about collaborative, transdisciplinary research beyond traditional departments, this is the postdoc fellowship for you.

Deadline: Oct 1, 2025

Apply: santafe.edu/sfifellowship

C. elegans connectome, protein-protein interaction network in the cell cycle, mycelium? :)

⚠️JOB ANNOUNCEMENT⚠️
Postdoctoral Position in Computational Cognitive Neuroscience (Marseille) in collaboration with @alainbarrat.bsky.social. Join us to study higher-order brain interactions in causal learning using information theory and network science. More info
www.fens.org/careers/job-...

Come be my colleague! Happy to answer any questions about what it's like living in Charlottesville and being in the department.

🚨🚨 New preprint just dropped! In collaboration with @colltoaction.bsky.social, Cliff Joslyn, @fralotito.bsky.social, Audun Myers, Joshua Pickard, Brenda Praggastis, and Przemysław Szufel, we define a new data sharing standard for higher-order networks. arxiv.org/abs/2507.11520

Thrilled to finally share a huge piece of my PhD project!
Our paper “The Topological Architecture of Brain Identity” is now out on bioRxiv: biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵 1/n

🧠 Want to understand how different higher-order methods compare in brain connectivity analysis?

Check out our new preprint — a fantastic collab with past & present NPL members @lordgrilo.bsky.social :
🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A thread🧵

@nwlandry.bsky.social fighting against vibes-based estimations of the convergence when sampling from the configuration model. Good content.

Bonus: @xgi.bsky.social viz

Our first keynote @marilyngatica.bsky.social opening TopoNets @netsciconf.bsky.social with higher-order interactions for neuroscience

Learning from @maximelca.bsky.social how to be nice to people in science 🤣🤣 @netplace.bsky.social @netsciconf.bsky.social

Flyer of panel on science as a craft at NetSci25

If you are at #NetSci25, join us at 1pm for our @netplace.bsky.social panel on the topic of "Science as a craft: Balancing career and skill progression", with panelists @asteixeira.bsky.social, @maximelca.bsky.social and @captainkirk1041.bsky.social