Sergi Valverde

Thanks Shumon!

Nummulites

Sea urchin spines in the Nummulites matrix

Sea urchin spines in the Nummulites matrix

While discussing ideas on the evolution with @svalver.bsky.social and wandering around wonderful Barcelona, I'm learning some architectural paleontology. Giant (pea-sized) foraminifera — Nummulites and some sea urchin spines. Provenance probably local Eocene «piedra de Gerona», España.
🧪⚒️ #Geology

Tomorrow 11/26 at 12:00: @andrejpaleo.bsky.social on the deep-time dynamics of Earth's biosphere.

If you’re interested in macroevolution, paleoclimate, complex systems, or scaling laws in natural history, this is one you shouldn’t miss!

Charles Darwin room @prbb.org! @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social

Many thanks, Brian! Our research was also influenced by your own work on allometric scaling. @andrejpaleo.bsky.social @blaividiella.bsky.social

Thank you Brian! Looking forward to your study!

Finally a thread that intersects with the insights and expertise of @chrisklausmeier.bsky.social and @maitner.bsky.social

Excited to announce our book “Neuroevolution: Harnessing Creativity in AI Agent Design” by Sebastian Risi, Yujin Tang, Risto Miikkulainen, and myself. We explore decades of work on evolving intelligent agents and shows how neuroevolution can drive creativity in deep learning, RL, LLMs and AI Agents!

U.S. Patent No. 3,541,541 for "X-Y position indicator for a display system".

Replica of original computer mouse prototype designed by Douglas Englebert. Image Source: Wikimedia Commons Image Credit: SRI International CC BY-SA 3.0

Replica of original computer mouse prototype designed by Douglas Englebert. Image Source: Wikimedia Commons Image Credit: SRI International CC BY 4.0

#OnThisDay in 1970, Douglas Engelbart received U.S. Patent No. 3,541,541 for the invention we now know as the computer mouse. A small wooden device that reshaped how humans interact with computers and laid the foundation for modern user interfaces.
#OTD #PatentHistory #ComputerHistory

We create because, unlike machines, we can. I'm looking forward to his concert in Barcelona next year.

Only 2 days left to get your abstracts in!

Thank you for being annoying OR: whack 'em if you got 'em

In the age of AI slop, true expertise is even more important to value.

Experts are the people who get so annoyed about the precise way to describe something they dedicate their lives to it (see excellent blog: www.experimental-history.com/p/thank-you-...).

We need them and their journals.

7.2/n

Brand-new conference on collective behaviour! Join us to foster a community to study how interactions among the constituents trigger fascinating collective phenomena: biofilms, fish schools, tissue self-organisation, bird swarms & many more!

Thanks to amazing speakers for helping us realise this!

CC: @josepsardanyes.bsky.social

Pinball model of development and reprogramming. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Postdoctoral position in agroecology for TRANSFORM Project The Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) is offering a full-time postdoctoral research position to support activities within a Horizon Europe project. The project focuses on developing innovative cr...

I am pleased to announce a new postdoctoral position in Theoretical Ecology. More info here: info.bc3research.org/2025/11/06/p...

The Fractal Geometry of Innovation Why are some cities more innovative than others? Mapping more than a century of U.S. patents, our npj Complexity study reveals fractal and scaling patterns in innovation—showing how the distribution o...

Innovation isn’t random — it follows geometric laws.

Our new Behind the Paper post in @springernature.com Communities explores how innovation forms a fractal geometry — self-organizing like a living system.

communities.springernature.com/posts/the-fr...

The pitfalls of an impoverished approach to culture: Commentary on Baumard and André

📢 Here is my commentary about the pitfalls of taking an impoverished evolutionary approach to culture, which include 'the limitations of a unidirectional model of evolution' and 'the neglect of niche construction theory'. #ehbea #evolution #psychscisky 🧪

🧵 1/2

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Congratulations to @gemmaeling.bsky.social al, Ana M. Rojas, and @rosafernandez.bsky.social for their groundbreaking application of large language models to understand the functions of uncharacterized proteins (the “dark proteome” sequences). This is a solid step towards non-model organisms! 🪄🧬

Thanks so much, Andrej! That means a lot. The connection to Bretskyan hierarchy is spot on. Both artificial and natural innovation seem to unfold through nested levels of organization — from individuals to regions and continents. Maybe we’re seeing a kind of cultural macroevolution in patent space 😉

Multiscale structure of innovation networks in the United States.

Fractal clusters and urban scaling shape spatial inequality in U.S. patenting 🏺🧪
S. Duran-Nebreda, @blaividiella.bsky.social, @svalver.bsky.social et al
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Innovation is distributed unevenly across space, yet mechanisms behind patenting inequality are poorly understood.

Congratulations Sergi and Co, excellent work! Bretskyan hierarchy in spirit work on the spatial structures of innovation.
Look at this revealing thread on the new study about the spatial patterns of human innovation👇
🧪 #Complexity

💯

What does #ecology have to do with #innovation?

#Scalinglaws of innovation don’t just come from city size, they emerge from how ideas compete and spread.

Then, inequality is not a bug; it’s an emergent feature.

See doi.org/10.1038/s442... @svalver.bsky.social @sduran-nebreda.bsky.social

Right — even the “geniuses” are standing on networks, not just shoulders!

In fact, our results show that the spatial distribution of inventors is fractal—it can’t be reduced to a few hubs like Silicon Valley. Innovation is a collective process that unfolds across time and scales, far beyond the actions of a few self-selected “geniuses.”

That’s totally fair, and I get why it’s sensitive. I’m a scientist, not a supporter of Quant—or any other—dogma. We can’t replace people with data or numbers. My hope with our study is simply to help bridge that gap, not widen it.

There’s no need for confrontation here. Qualitative and quantitative approaches study the same phenomenon, just at different levels and timescales.

Innovation needs both: imagination to create new forms, and analysis to understand how those forms evolve and connect.

Quant and Qual are not opposites — they’re layers of the same phenomenon.

Innovation begins as a social process — people, relationships, creativity — yet it leaves patterns we can learn from.

Quant analysis shouldn't replace the human story; it helps us see how those stories connect across scales.

CC: @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social @utknoxville.bsky.social

The journey to publish this research has been (far too) long. I'd like to thank my coauthors, @sduran-nebreda.bsky.social , @blaividiella.bsky.social , Alex Bentley
, for their years of hard work; without them, this study would not have been completed. Thank you!