Complexity articles from across Nature Portfolio

The collective schooling behaviour of rummy-nose tetra fish is associated with light intensity, moving from a state of disorder through polarization and then into rotational milling as light intensity increases.

O-information, a measure of higher-order interactions in multivariate data, can reveal synergistic ensembles of brain regions that are invisible to bivariate functional connectivity analyses.

At the molecular level, the evolution of life is driven by the generation and diversification of adaptation mechanisms. Here Araujo and Liotta identify definitive and universal structural requirements for adaptation via intermolecular interactions.

In this perspective, the authors hypothesise that glial senescence, requiring senescent microglia burden, perpetuates further aging, Alzheimer’s pathologies, and senescence. Increasing glial senescence is proposed as necessary to drive individuals from healthy cognition into cognitive decline and dementia.

Focusing on the serial differentiation of the presacral column across 1,136 extant mammal species, the authors find evidence of high within-group variation and an evolutionary trend towards increasing complexity.