Victor Maull Miquel

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.

This has been the greatest of journeys!
Thank you so much for guiding me through it. Let’s see what’s next!

Cooperation is a universal feature of complex systems, from the origins of life and microbiomes to societies. What universal patterns can be found in these systems? Here's our new @pnas.org paper. @jordipinero.bsky.social @artemyte.bsky.social @sfiscience.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

Today I will be giving a talk in the BioClub Tokio on synthetic ecosystems. Happy to share and discuss with this community again! You can follow on zoom if you are interested: bioclub.tokyo/en/events/sy...

Off to Madrid from an amazing #ALIFE2025 conference in beautiful Kyoto. Kudos to the organisers.

Honored to receive the 2024 Outstanding Publication Award from the Intl Soc for Artificial Life @alife2025.bsky.social for our @royalsocietypublishing.org ublishing.org paper “Fundamental Constraints to the Logic of Living Systems” @sfiscience.bsky.social
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

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

Biology - UMass Boston Biology - UMass Boston

UMass Boston seeks a tenure-track Assistant Professor in microbial ecology, starting September 1, 2026. Apply by December 1, 2025. Details: http://www.umb.edu/academics/csm/biology #job

Una exposició per pensar el Temps des de la ciència, la cultura i la condició humana museuciencies.cat/exposicio_te...

#MISB (@csic.es-UIMP )

Design meets evolution: Theory and practice
Víctor de Lorenzo (@vdlorenzo.bsky.social), @cnb-csic.bsky.social 

📅Oct 3
⏰11am
The seminar will take place at CIB and additionally streamed online 🔗https://rediris.zoom.us/meeting/register/ZmrXKHmFSHqyxE65O3wvRQ#/registration

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...

Can we leverage the mechanics of horizontal gene transfer to percolate genes of interest through bacterial communities? This paper takes the initial theoretical steps to explore its potential and implications, and to derive design principles.

Inspiration:
spj.science.org/doi/10.34133...

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...

In Pan de Azúcar National Park in Chile’s Atacama Desert are pebbles known locally as “maicillo” and in English as “grit.” Rich colonies of hidden microbial life dwell in their crevices and bind them together into thin crusts. quantamagazine.org/in-a-fierce-...

A new theme issue of #PhilTransB focuses on the evolution of Earth’s biosphere: royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202...

Beautiful patterns at the opposite side

A yellow bloom spreads in the southeast. Mud collected from the rivers that frame Barcelona, Besòs and Llobregat. Month 7.

Navigating the possibilities and pitfalls of biocrust recovery in a changing climate Biological soil crusts are complex communities composed of lichens, mosses, bacteria, and cyanobacteria that create a living skin on the soil surface across drylands worldwide. Although small in size...

#Biocrusts are vital to dryland health—but can they recover after being disturbed? 🤔A new review in @botsocamerica.bsky.social #AmJBot by @michalaphillips.bsky.social & al explores biocrust recovery timelines, climate impacts & restoration potential bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

An episodic burst of massive genomic rearrangements and the origin of non-marine annelids - Nature Ecology & Evolution An analysis of annelid genomes reveals massive reshuffling of chromosomes in the ancestral lineage leading to clitellates, a clade composed of non-marine annelids, with potential implications for the ...

This paper on massive genomic rearrangements at the basis of a major evolutionary event reminds me of Cortazar's novel Rayuela, in which the order you read the same text originate very different stories www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How can we build a general theory of mutualistic communities? After five years, we finally completed a new Neutral Theory of Cooperation that is fully solved analytically and displays remarkable properties @jordipinero.bsky.social @artemyte.bsky.social @manlius.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2506.09737

Reobre el Terrat Viu del Museu amb una nova àrea experimental sobre el canvi climàtic: Mesocosmos

⌚Horari de visita:
Dissabtes, d’ 11 a 15h.
Diumenges i festius, d’ 11h a 15h.
Diumenges tarda (portes obertes), de 16h a 20h.

🧪 Més informació:

museuciencies.cat/reobre-el-te...

Registration for our workshop "An Introduction to Structural Stability in Ecology" is open!

📍 #AEETSIBECOL2025 meeting
📅 June 2

@eco-aeet.bsky.social @sibecol.bsky.social

Ricard Solé, biólogo y físico: “Tal vez haya que redefinir la soledad” El científico, comisario de la exposición ‘Cerebro(s)‘, revisa los efectos de la relación entre personas y máquinas y cuestiona el alcance de algunos desarrollos tecnológicos

Ricard Solé, biólogo y físico 👉🏻 elpais.com/tecnologia/2...

A green glowing spectre is haunting the waters again..

How can we build or engineer synthetic ecosystems? What can they tell us about ecological rules? Can we model planetary-level regulation in the test tube? Glad to deliver my keynote tomorrow at the MPDEE'25 conference www.bcamath.org/events/mpdee... @vmaull.bsky.social @lizashpilkina.bsky.social

Two types of brains have emerged in nature: solid (ours) and liquid (ant colonies, immune system). What can be computed by liquid brains? How complex are they? Check our paper on the statistical physics of liquid brains @jordipinero.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

The prototype for a bigger version is working very well! @museuciencies.cat

The ostracods grazed it all. Should we expect Lotka-Volterra dynamics? Mud collected from the rivers that frame Barcelona, Besòs and Llobregat. Month 5.

Is there a global pattern in our planet's chemistry consistent with life? Looking at our atmosphere, Mars, Venus, and interstellar space, we found that Earth follows the same architecture as a living cell, while the others do not. Would this be used as a biosignature? web.archive.org/web/20060113...

How can biological systems anticipate future events? In our new paper with @jordiplam.bsky.social, we show how a simple genetic circuit can predict future trends through a simple (and perhaps widespread) mechanism @drmichaellevin.bsky.social @koseskalab.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...