One of the biggest misconceptions about Ebola is that it is primarily a hemorrhagic disease. It isn't. In the current Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in the DRC, fever, vomiting, and diarrhea dominate at presentation, while bleeding occurs in only ~10% of patients. www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

Clinical Characteristics of Patients Infected with Bundibugyo Virus, DRC 2026 | NEJM

Bundibugyo virus, a filovirus, is currently spreading in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This report presents early data on symptoms and illness severity as well as diagnostic challenges.

nejm.org

This is a special moment for a bunch of us, working to make it happen. Welcome to NetSci 2026 @netsciconf.bsky.social main conference, the 20th anniversary of it, here in Boston

The @netscisociety.bsky.social is stronger than ever @netsciconf.bsky.social

1/ The #Ebola situation in DRC is quite serious, but still controllable. An international consortium, led by INSP & INRB in the DRC, is curating an open-access data set and real-time dashboard to aid in the response. Why serious, but controllable? A 🧵 inrb-umie.github.io/EBOV2026_Epi...

#NetSci2026 starts in 6 days! So pumped for this conference. netsci2026.com @netsciconf.bsky.social

Nextstrain #ANDV trees updated with a few improvements: - 2 outbreaks marked - host scientific/common name added - province now visible on map - date colouring added Here's a quick tour of how to change colours, geography & names! Links to trees here (scroll down): nextstrain.org/groups/hodcr...

1/ The past 36 hours have been significant for the ongoing #hantavirus outbreak. I still think the risk is low, but we're almost certainly going to see more cases. Here's what I'm watching: 1. Three new positive individuals (French, US, Spanish). 2. Four viral genomes. 3. Ship fully evacuated.

Sam Scarpino@scarpino.bsky.social · 3mo ago

1/ Yesterday I was more worried about #hantavirus than I am today. Why? Flight attendant who was exposed - Tested negative Viral genome - No concerning mutations Two Singaporean's exposed - Tested negative Data situation - We're tracking at Global.health (h/t @mugkraemer.bsky.social)

1/ 🚀 Pathoplexus now supports the Andes variant of Hantavirus (ANDV). ANDV is the variant identified in the recent MV Hondius cases, & the Hantavirus variant previously identified as having occasional human-to-human transmission. pathoplexus.org/andv #hantavirus #hondius

1/ Yesterday I was more worried about #hantavirus than I am today. Why? Flight attendant who was exposed - Tested negative Viral genome - No concerning mutations Two Singaporean's exposed - Tested negative Data situation - We're tracking at Global.health (h/t @mugkraemer.bsky.social)

Another fantastic Student Research Symposium organized by NetSI PhD students! With faculty across Boston, Portland, and London, 35+ attendees per session, and inspiring early PhD presentations, it was a great success. The future of network science is in great hands!

Just finished, a woodcut print with asemic writing. About 14" x 11", titled "Current Affairs." #MediaCriticism #ICEPolicies #Artwork #Politics

New paper showing that much of the apparent success of protein language models in predicting mutational effects is a mirage: These models mostly memorize sites. 1/ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The origin of our eyes over half a billion years ago is looking more and more weird--from a cyclops to four eyes to two. Here's my story (gift link): nyti.ms/4rzisQP

Quick reminder that it’s NOT too late to get your flu shot. Influenza B cases are rising—which is typical around this time of respiratory virus season. Cases will likely continue to climb for a few more weeks.

AI requires good data. Public health requires good. Linking the two presents huge challenges and opportunities. I joined Oliver Morgan, WHO Director of Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence Innovation, on his podcast to talk about how we can meet this moment. youtu.be/kC1uLIkmpo0?...

Building a Grounded Approach to AI in Public Health Surveillance

YouTube video by PEI Innovation Forum

youtu.be

Fine @nytimes.com, I’ll have spaghetti with a side salad.

In a new preprint, we combine modeling with school-level vaccine data to contextualize the risk of 'breakthrough infections' and impacts on the ongoing US measles outbreak. #idsky #episky www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

Interpreting Breakthrough Infections Given Assortative Mixing of Partially Vaccinated Populations

Declining vaccine coverage across the United States has increased the risk of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. Even when vaccines have low primary failure rates, conventional epidemic theory...

medrxiv.org

We’ve reached the urban skiing stage of our winter storm in Boston!

:chefs_kiss: Google

*New paper in Nature Health* Why did the 2022 mpox outbreak in Paris decline so abruptly? rdcu.be/eZ24H

Role of behaviour change in controlling the 2022 Paris mpox outbreak

Nature Health - Behaviour changes, rather than vaccination or postinfection immunity, best explained the sudden decline of mpox cases among men who have sex with men during an outbreak in the Paris...

rdcu.be

The conference (agreement between House and Senate) appropriations bill that includes HHS and NIH was released this morning. www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/majorit... 1/5

Committee Releases Conferenced Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Bi...

United States Senate Committee on Appropriations

appropriations.senate.gov

Really excited our paper about how H5N1 rapidly adapted to cattle (and how these adaptations also increased its ability to infect cells from the human respiratory tract) is now published! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Looks like it’s gonna be another banner aurora night if it’s clear where you are

Tylenol during pregnancy is safe without increased risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability of offspring A new review of the evidence just out www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

@kyriakikalimeri.bsky.social & Elisa Omodei come together for a rare joint session at NetSci Conference 2026. Their research draws on real-world data, exploring how network and computational social science can address societal issues. tinyurl.com/4t5p46yr

❤️❤️❤️

gwen howerton@kissphoria.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Thanks to @keribla.bsky.social and @thebarbedwire.com I have become obsessed with Orange Julius, an incarcerated Texas woman's emotional support cat that needs to go to the vet: www.chron.com/culture/arti...

Adaptive behaviors neutralize bistable explosive transitions in higher-order contagion arxiv.org/abs/2601.05801

Adaptive behaviors neutralize bistable explosive transitions in higher-order contagion

During contagion phenomena, individuals perceiving a risk of infection commonly adapt their behavior and reduce their exposure. The effects of such adaptive mechanisms have been studied for processes ...

arxiv.org

Our new paper on searching the space of hypergraphs to solve constrained combinatorial optimization problem is out. This was joint work with Guilherme Ferraz de Arruda, Wan He, Nasimeh Heydaribeni, Tara Javidi, and Yamir Moreno. communities.springernature.com/posts/buildi...

Building More Resilient Teams: A Mathematical Approach Using Hypergraphs

When organizations need to assign people to projects, they face a fundamental challenge: how can they form teams that continue to function if someone becomes sick, leaves the company, or is otherwise ...

communities.springernature.com

🔥🔥🔥

NetSci 2026@netsciconf.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Another joint keynote at NetSci 2026 is official! 𝗔𝗹𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘁-𝗟𝗮́𝘀𝘇𝗹𝗼́ 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗮́𝘀𝗶 and 𝗥𝗲́𝗸𝗮 𝗔𝗹𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘁 reunite on stage for a one-of-a-kind talk. Their discovery of scale-free networks and the Barabási–Albert model reshaped network science. We can’t wait to welcome you! @barabasi.bsky.social tinyurl.com/4t5p46yr

Now that we’re back, I want to promote this awesome work from our group led by former UG Researcher, Gillian Patton (now a Ph.D student at Wash U) published in Evol. Letters! We blocked a first step mutation that typically promotes biofilm formation to see how this roadblock influences evolution.

Evolution Letters@evolletters.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Evolution isn’t always forward-looking. Experiments show that an early, beneficial mutation can trap E. coli on a local fitness peak, preventing ecotype diversification in structured environments and highlighting the role of G×E interactions. academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...