Manlio De Domenico

Bellissima foto e bellissimo thread.

Grazie @scrutacieli.bsky.social 💫

🚨 New paper from @comunelab.bsky.social ! 🧪🧠

If you do connectome analysis from correlations, you’re probably averaging at some point (and you probably don't give it much thought).

But when is it OK?

👉 www.nature.com/articles/s42...

🧵 1/

New paper led by Alessandra Corso and @valedand.bsky.social at @comunelab.bsky.social just out: www.nature.com/articles/s42...

#ComplexSystems #HumanBrain #NetworkScience #CoMuNeLab

/fin

Using generative models and inference, we tested this on hundreds of reconstructed brain networks (structural + functional), across densities and measures (modularity, clustering, “small-world index“, “efficiency“): some “clean” group-level conclusions can be pipeline artifacts.

4/

These are often not equivalent and once you add thresholding / density choices, the bias can become large enough to change what you think you’re seeing, especially for functional connectomes.

We propose a practical way to monitor and control for this bias.

3/

There are (at least) two very different “averages” people mix all the time:

- Average first: average correlation matrices across subjects → threshold/binarize → compute modularity/clustering/etc.

- Average last: compute the metric on each subject's network → then average the metric.

2/

🚨 New paper from @comunelab.bsky.social ! 🧪🧠

If you do connectome analysis from correlations, you’re probably averaging at some point (and you probably don't give it much thought).

But when is it OK?

👉 www.nature.com/articles/s42...

🧵 1/

Coherent, after all.

How complex should network models be?

🚨 In our latest paper we quantify (if and) when higher-order interactions are informative versus reducible to pairwise structure without losing functional signal (e.g., diffusion behavior).

👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

1/

YouTube video by The Daily Show Trump’s got 99 reasons he needs to take over Greenland, and not one of them makes sense #DailyShow

Oh man, made my day.

youtube.com/shorts/2wbV4...

Spreading kindness can save the world.

Spreading good ideas can make it better.

Next time you'll be in Italy, get in touch!

Yep. The motivation is good, but as written nearly everywhere in the paper, information-theoretical does not mean "principled" and the last call is exactly for more principled methods.

All in all, this is one step forward in the right direction, with all due limitations. Thanks for the note!

Kudos to @maximelca.bsky.social @lgajo.bsky.social Arsham Ghavasieh & Federico Battiston for this international/cross-labs collaboration.

#NetworkScience #ComplexSystems

Paper 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We use an introduce an information-theoretic test based on the network density matrix.

Results in a nutshell? Some real-world networks require HO structure, while in some technological and biological cases, pairwise models are sufficient.

💡 THM: don’t assume the order, (try to) measure it.

2/

How complex should network models be?

🚨 In our latest paper we quantify (if and) when higher-order interactions are informative versus reducible to pairwise structure without losing functional signal (e.g., diffusion behavior).

👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

1/

In my reading pipeline, sounds very interesting, as usual.

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...

Cone nebula | Christmas tree taken from my terrace

Cone nebula | Christmas tree (NGC2264) - This is still a work in progress. I’ve been imaging this nebula for about three weeks, fitting it in between unstable weather and other projects running in parallel.
This is the emission signal mostly due to ionized hydrogen (Hɑ) >>>

🔭
#Astrophotography

General laws of biodiversity: Climatic niches predict plant range size and ecological dominance globally

”key insights into species’ vulnerability to environmental change and the processes that structure biodiversity at global scales“

🌐🧪🌍🌱
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Convergent genome evolution shaped the emergence of terrestrial animals - Nature Comparisons of 154 genomes from 21 animal phyla and outgroups have been used to reconstruct ancestral adaptation to life on land across 11 distinct terrestrialization events, revealing strong evidence...

strong evidence of convergent genome evolution across the animal kingdom suggesting that, in large part, adaptation to life on land is predictable, linking genes to ecosystems

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧪🌐🧬🌍

Convergent genome evolution shaped the emergence of terrestrial animals - Nature Comparisons of 154 genomes from 21 animal phyla and outgroups have been used to reconstruct ancestral adaptation to life on land across 11 distinct terrestrialization events, revealing strong evidence...

strong evidence of convergent genome evolution across the animal kingdom suggesting that, in large part, adaptation to life on land is predictable, linking genes to ecosystems

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧪🌐🧬🌍

General laws of biodiversity: Climatic niches predict plant range size and ecological dominance globally

”key insights into species’ vulnerability to environmental change and the processes that structure biodiversity at global scales“

🌐🧪🌍🌱
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

It's disheartening to see the blind strategy of the US in this delicate, yet important, phase of humankind.

Cheap Solar Is Transforming Lives and Economies Across Africa

While we are bombing Venezuela to get access to their oil, China is going all in on solar… and the rest of the world is following.

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/c...

Netflix’s Stranger Things is more interesting: it leans on Einstein instead. I’ll let myself be a bit more speculative than usual and ask a simple question: if the Upside Down had to obey physics, what would it have to be?

Happy 2026!

👉 open.substack.com/pub/manlius/...

“I know why all electrons have the same charge and mass.”

“Why?”

“Because they are all the same electron!”

Wrong, if taken literally. But ideas like this don’t matter bc they survive, they matter just bc they change how we think 💡 @proffeynman.bsky.social

👉 www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physi...

What's the physics behind Stranger Things “worlds”? Starting the 2026 with an unusual post

Not yet. But I have written a post about it before watching the last episode. I hope to be right.

open.substack.com/pub/manlius/...

As usual, also on:

🎧 Spotify: creators.spotify.com/pod/show/com...

🎧 Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Netflix’s Stranger Things is more interesting: it leans on Einstein instead. I’ll let myself be a bit more speculative than usual and ask a simple question: if the Upside Down had to obey physics, what would it have to be?

Happy 2026!

👉 open.substack.com/pub/manlius/...