Professor Stadler Uses Nearby Intron Pairs as Phylogenetic Markers
SFI External Professor Peter Stadler and co-authors tackle deep branches of the evolutionary tree for insect phylogeny. They show that the analysis of phylogenetically nested, nearby intron pairs is suitable to identify evolutionarily younger intron positions and to determine their relative age, which should be of equal importance for the understanding of intron evolution and the reconstruction of the eukaryotic tree. See “Near Intron Positions are Reliable Phylogenetic Markers: An Application to Holometabolous Insects,” V. Krauss, C. Thummler, F. George, J. Lehmann, P. F. Stadler, and C. Eisenhardt, Molecular Biology and Evolution 25(2) (May 2008): 821-830. [read more...]Quantum Internet Could Protect Batman's Secret Identity
As researchers like (SFI External Professor) Seth Lloyd of MIT make progress toward the goal of quantum computing, they've found that the same architecture used to build quantum random access memory (QRAM) could apply across the whole of the internet. This could put an end to internet spying for good, and would mean that Batman could send email to the JLA without fear of discovery.... Lloyd admits, the QRAM set-up is a little slower than the RAM. "You'd have to be willing to make that trade-off." That brings Lloyd back to the idea of quantum Internet search. "If you had a quantum Internet, then this would be useful," he points out. "This offers a huge decrease in energy used and an increase in robustness." The other interesting aspect is the possibility of completely anonymous Internet search. Not even your service provider would know who you are or what you search for. [read more...]Subsea storage may fix our CO2 problem
A growing body of research predicts deep subsea rock formations may be ideal for carbon sequestration — the process of storing carbon dioxide emissions underground to keep them from entering the Earth's atmosphere and contributing to climate change. A number of researchers already are conducting projects to inject CO2 in onshore formations to see if large amounts of the greenhouse gas can be stored underground indefinitely. Daniel Schrag, a professor at Harvard University's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, says the high pressures and low temperatures found below the sea floor — 10,000 feet or more underwater — provide a nearly foolproof way to keep CO2 stored. In those conditions CO2 becomes a liquid more dense than water that will not rise up to the ocean floor. "It's a pretty simple idea that has much lower risks than carbon sequestration on land," Schrag said. "And there's truly a huge capacity for storage under the sea floor." [read more...]Mapmaker for the World of Influenze
Science April 18, 2008 DEREK SMITH DIDN’T WANT TO DO ROCKET science—literally. That’s how he ended up becoming an internationally recognized expert in influenza virus evolution.... “I’m not a pacifist,” Smith says, “but I didn’t want anything to do with work directly related to the military.” Instead, he started looking for a job in which his expertise might benefit public health. He found it in a Ph.D. project to model the immune system’s recognition of influenza viruses at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. He never regretted the choice. Now at the University of Cambridge, U.K., Smith has become the unofficial cartographer of the influenza world. He has developed a technique to produce colorful maps visualizing the never-ending changes in the influenza virus, and over the past 4 years, his lab has become a global nerve center that analyzes influenza data from around the world. [read more...]New Breed of Business Gurus Rises
An article in the Wall Street Journal reviews the popularity of speakers noting that psychologists and CEOs Climb in Influence, Draw Hits and Big Fees. No matter who's preaching, managers (should be) wary of blindly embracing advice. "People have to use all these gurus with some caution," says Michael Mauboussin, chief investment strategist at Legg Mason Capital Management. He is a fan of Clayton Christensen, the Harvard professor known for his writings on "disruptive innovation," who ranks No. 17 on the list, up from 49 in 2003. Mr. Mauboussin says gurus often idolize certain companies during good times, and then chastise the same ones during bad. "The reality is, they were never so good, and they were never so bad," he says. [read more...]Scientists Develop Technique For Extracting Hierarchical Structure Of Networks
In a May 1 Nature paper, "Hierarchical structure and the prediction of missing links in networks," Santa Fe Institute (SFI) researchers Aaron Clauset, Cristopher Moore, and Mark Newman show that many real-world networks can be understood as a hierarchy of modules, where nodes cluster together to form modules, which themselves cluster into larger modules -- arrangements similar to the organization of sports players into teams, teams into conferences, and conferences into leagues, for example. This hierarchical organization, the researchers show, can simultaneously explain a number of patterns previously discovered in networks, such as the surprising heterogeneity in the number of connections some nodes have, or the prevalence of triangles in a network diagram. Their discovery suggests that hierarchy may, in fact, be a fundamental organizational principle for complex networks. [read more...]Killing the Rational Man
When studying economic theory, one learns early on about the concept of the "rational man." The idea is that in any market economy, decisions are made based on rationality. . In order to understand how the market works, one is told, one has to simply accept that man is rational and would never buy something for more than it is worth, or sell it for less than the market value. .. about a decade ago, a group of physicists met with a group of economists at the Santa Fe Institute and questioned them on this point. The physicists, having experienced real human beings, could not understand how anyone could create an entire discipline based around the assumption that humans are rational. In the 1970s, two professors, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, decided to test just how rational people are when making decisions involving risk. They conducted an enormous number of studies that show that, most of the time, people make decisions that are demonstrably irrational... The work of Kahneman and Tversky did change the science of economics. It even spawned a new field called behavioral economics. Unfortunately, it has not been widely adopted within the discipline of risk management. It is important to the profession that this work take a more prominent role. [read more...]Hierarchical structure and the prediction of missing links in networks
SFI's Aaron Clauset in a letter to Nature reports on Networks' research..".which has in recent years emerged as an invaluable tool for describing and quantifying complex systems in many branches of science... recent studies suggest that networks often exhibit hierarchical organization, in which vertices divide into groups that further subdivide into groups of groups, and so forth over multiple scales. In many cases the groups are found to correspond to known functional units, such as ecological niches in food webs, modules in biochemical networks (protein interaction networks, metabolic networks or genetic regulatory networks) or communities in social networks..... Taken together, our results suggest that hierarchy is a central organizing principle of complex networks, capable of offering insight into many network phenomena. [read more...]Postdoctoral Fellow Trancik Considers Innovative Uses of Nanotube Films
SFI Postdoctoral Fellow Jessika Trancik and co-authors report on the synthesis of thin, transparent, and highly catalytic carbon nanotube films. Nanotubes catalyze an important reaction in dye-sensitized solar cells. This research may have application to batteries, fuel cells, and electroanalytical devices. See J. E. Trancik, S. C. Barton, and J. Hone, “Transparent and Catalytic Carbon Nanotube Films,” NANO Letters 8(4) (April 2008): 982-987. [read more...]Ancient Ecosystems Organized Much Like Our Own
ScienceDaily (Apr. 28, 2008) — Similarities between half-billion-year-old and recent food webs point to deep principles underpinning the structure of ecological relationships, as shown by researchers from the Santa Fe Institute, Microsoft Research Cambridge and elsewhere. Analyses of Chengjiang and Burgess Shale food-web data suggest that most, but not all, aspects of the trophic structure of modern ecosystems were in place over a half-billion years ago. It was an Anomalocaris-eat-trilobite world, filled with species like nothing on today's Earth. But the ecology of Cambrian communities was remarkably modern, say researchers behind the first study to reconstruct detailed food webs for ancient ecosystems. Their paper suggests that networks of feeding relationships among marine species that lived hundreds of millions of years ago are remarkably similar to those of today. "Paleontologists have long known that food webs were important but we have lacked a rigorous method for studying them in deep time," comments co-author and paleontologist Doug Erwin of the Santa Fe Institute and the Smithsonian Institution. "We have shown that we can reconstruct ancient food webs and compare them to modern webs, opening up new avenues of paleoecology. We were surprised to see that most aspects of the basic structure of food webs seem to have become established during the initial explosion of animal life." [read more...]Ancient ecosystems organized much like our own
Conducted by researchers from the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, Microsoft Research Cambridge, and other institutions, the study is the first to reconstruct detailed food webs for ancient ecosystems. The researchers compiled data from the 505 million-year-old Burgess Shale in British Columbia, Canada and the even earlier Chengjiang Shale of eastern Yunnan Province, China, dating from 520 million years ago. "There are a few intriguing differences with modern webs, particularly in the earlier Chengjiang Shale web. However, in general, it doesn’t seem to matter what species, or environment, or evolutionary history you’ve got, you see many of the same sorts of food-web patterns,” explained Dunne. (ANI) The discovery of strong and enduring regularities in how such webs are organized will help in the understanding of the history and evolution of life, and could provide insights for modern ecology - such as how ecosystems will respond to biological extinctions and invasions. [read more...]Physicists quantify the 'coefficient of inefficiency'
(SFI External Professor) Stefan Thurner.. with the Medical University of Vienna and colleagues are trying to quatify why groups with more than 20 members are much more ineffectual at making decisions that smaller groups, as observed by Parkinson's law.... The dynamics of a cabinet with a fixed number of members was simulated by starting the model with each node in a specific state. The state of a node is then flipped if enough of its influencers are in the opposite state. This process is repeated many times until the system settles into a stable configuration of coalitions of “fors” and “againsts”. Their findings indicate that the dynamics of the cabinet change just where, and how, Parkinson predicted... Thurner and his colleagues believe that this change occurs at the point where a cabinet can support multiple independent factions — something that could impair its ability to make good decisions. Thurner hopes that the team’s research could help committee-driven organizations such as the European Union create effective decision making bodies. This will become more difficult as the EU admits more members (there are currently 27). Indeed, the EU is considering reducing the number of commissioners on its executive council from 27 to 18, to avoid the curse of Parkinson’s coefficient of inefficiency. [read more...]Physicist seeks ‘deeper’ view of nature, societies
Crossing the boundaries of physics and biology, Santa Fe Institute fellow Geoffrey West has moved beyond establishing the relationship between blood flow in the body and traffic flow in cities. Speaking yesterday to an audience of students, faculty and community members at the University of Missouri’s Monsanto Auditorium, West said studying how the natural environment reacts to problems can give clues for how cities should solve problems such as crime, pollution and global warming. "We better understand cities if we’re going to solve these problems," West said. "We cannot in my opinion we will not - solve the problem by focusing on global warming, by focusing on energy and the environment and then focusing on the market. … We need to create a generation of people very quickly that think in broader terms, seeing these as integrated problems." [read more...]Professor Pagel Considers Genomes, Language, and the Transition to Multicellular Organisms
SFI External Professor Mark Pagel writes that both genomes and language suggest that biological and social complexity emerge from how information is used, not from how much of it there is. Similarly, he poses that the emergence of digital regulation derived from unused stretches of junk DNA may have precipitated the transition from single cells to complex multicellular organisms. See M. Pagel, “Rise of the Digital Machine,” Nature 452 (7188) (2008): 699. [read more...]The 3rd International Workshop on Clinical Pharmacology of Hepatitis Therapy
The Workshop was held April 9-10, 2008 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (SFI External Professor) Dr. Avidan Neumann (Bar-Ilan University) discussed the role of mathematical modeling of viral dynamics in the development of new antiviral compounds. Dr. Neumann demonstrated the role of models in understanding Hepatitis C Viral infection and replication, providing insight into the mechanisms of action of (current medications) PegINF and RBV and the time course of response to therapy, and evaluating antiviral dynamics and resistance evolution with investigational HCV compounds. These mathematical models will undoubtedly be useful tools for understanding the mechanisms of action of therapies, resistance evolution patterns, determining optimal treatment durations, and for early prediction of response to therapy. [read more...]Legg Mason Value Trust Letter to Shareholders: First Quarter 2008
In his quarterly letter to shareholder's (SFI Trustee Chair) and Legg Mason's Bill Miller quotes SFI's John Geanakoplos. Dear Shareholder..... The weak dollar is another culprit in the commodity cycle. Oil began to rise in earnest when the dollar index broke down sharply in February. The Fed could help a lot by halting its interest rate cuts. Real short rates are now negative. It is not the price of credit that is the problem, it is its availability. If the Fed stopped cutting rates, that would help the dollar, which in turn ought to stall the commodity price rises, and thus also help the inflation picture. More technically, the Fed, in my opinion, needs to focus on the value of collateral and not on the price of credit. It appears they are beginning to do this, which is a very healthy sign. This is a topic for another letter, but anyone interested in it should consult the work of John Geanakoplos, a distinguished economics professor at Yale and an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute, who has written extensively on this issue, and presented to the Fed on it as well. He and Chairman Bernanke were grad students together at MIT. [read more...]Maps Point the Way to Fighting the Flu Virus
An international team of researchers has crafted software that illustrates interactions between immune systems and the flu strains trying to breach their defenses--on a global scale. The software allows them to map the clashes between immune systems and germs, starting with the influenza virus. This difference between viruses—as our immune system interprets them—is known as the "antigenic difference," says Derek Smith, professor of infectious disease informatics at the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology, who wrote the antigenic cartography software in collaboration with Alan Lapedes, a computational biologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and Ron Fouchier, a virologist at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Smith earned a PhD in computer science from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque while a fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. "You take antibodies raised for different strains of flu and see how well they bind to different strains of influenza," he adds, "and you end up with a table with these measurements." [read more...]Jim Cramer Blog; Give Drug Stocks a Chance
"Nobody thinks "buy defense" any more when oil spikes. They just think buy oil and ag. And they sell retail. I find that pretty amazing. Higher oil prices mean a slowdown in the economy, which means buy drugs and foods, or at least drugs. But the group is bizarrely despised.... I read this terrific article last night in SFI, the Santa Fe Institute magazine, that talked about this market's inherent emotional irrationality. Today's Exhibit A about how right that article is." [read more...]Professor Lillo Considers Financial Markets and the Effect of Large Orders
SFI External Professor Fabrizio Lillo and his coauthors discuss how agents strategically adjust the properties of large orders in order to meet their preferences and minimize their impact. They show that heterogeneity of agents is a key ingredient for the emergence of some aggregate properties characterizing this complex system. See G. Vaglica, F. Lillo, E. Moro, and R. N. Mantegna, “Scaling Laws of Strategic Behavior and Size Heterogeneity,” Physical Review E 77 (3 pt. 2) (2008): nil_1253-nil1258. [read more...]The Prize Lagrange-Foundation CRT to an SFI Professor
The economist W. Brian Arthur of the Santa Fe Institute (USA) and mathematician Yakov G. Sinai of the University of Princeton (USA) are the winners of the Prize Lagrange-Foundation CRT on Complex Systems. The ceremony will be held April 22 in Torino, Italy. [read more...]8 Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs
An Associated Press (AP) article asks —Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? According to “If at First You Don’t Succeed,” a book by Brent Bowers, you’re a natural-born capitalist if you exhibit all eight of these entrepreneurial traits: 1. Seizing opportunities. Have a knack for spotting and grabbing opportunities that nobody else seems to notice? In the early days of the Internet, many people talked about starting an online auction house. Pierre Omidyar and his collaborators organized a business plan that created eBay. Other characteristics include showing innovative behavior since childhood, turning on a dime, pragmatism, tenacity and self confidence bordering on delusions of grandeur. [read more...]State Department's 2008 Earth Day Commemoration
Science and Technology Advisor to the Secretary of State Nina Fedoroff will examine how science and technology are applied to environmental issues during the State Department's Earth Day celebrations. [read more...]Edward N. Lorenz, a Meteorologist and a Father of Chaos Theory, Dies at 90
Edward N. Lorenz, a meteorologist who tried to predict the weather with computers but instead gave rise to the modern field of chaos theory, died Wednesday at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 90. Dr. Lorenz published his findings in 1963. “The paper he wrote in 1963 is a masterpiece of clarity of exposition about why weather is unpredictable,” said J. Doyne Farmer, a professor at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. The following year, Dr. Lorenz published another paper that described how a small twiddling of parameters in a model could produce vastly different behavior, transforming regular, periodic events into a seemingly random chaotic pattern. [read more...]The Complexity of Evolution
Scientists usually study natural selection at a single level, such as genes or individuals or even a population, says (SFI External Professor) and biophysical complexity researcher Maya Paczuski -- but it takes place at all these levels simultaneously, and what happens at each scale resonates through the web of life in ways we're just beginning to comprehend. Paczuski, founder of the University of Calgary's Complexity Science Group, talked to Wired.com on the expansion of evolutionary theory to include complexity and emergence. These phenomena don't replace the classic mechanisms of genetic mutation and natural selection, but work with them; and accompanying this expanded conception of evolution is the multi-scale perspective espoused by Paczuski. "One of the things that complexity theory teaches us is that you have emergent properties -- like ecosystems -- so you have to think of selection happening at many different scales. That problem hasn't been addressed in any coherent way in scientific literature. It's one of the great complex problems of the future." [read more...]First Step Towards a Quantum Internet
A gate using qubit made of entangled photon pairs could lead to 'automatically secure' networks. (SFI External Professor) Professor Seth Lloyd, a quantum-computing researcher at MIT, told Personal Computer World magazine of an important step towards creating a quantum Internet in which communication would be 'automatically secure'. Prem Kumar, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Northwestern University, has created a quantum 'controlled NOT' logic gate within an optical fibre. [read more...]Scientists sift clues to mysterious migration
Anasazi - Artifacts point to possible ideological or religious struggles behind the move south 700 years ago...The migration raises the most vexing and persistent question in Southwestern archaeology: Why, in the late 13th century, did thousands of Anasazi abandon Kayenta, Mesa Verde and the other magnificent settlements of the Colorado Plateau and move south into Arizona and New Mexico? (SFI External Professor) Timothy Kohler of Washington State University and members of the Village Ecodynamics Project are collaborating with archaeologists at Crow Canyon on a computer simulation of population changes in southwest Colorado from 600 to about 1300. Amid the swirl of competing explanations, one thing is clear: The pueblo people didn't just dry up and blow away like so much parched corn. They restructured their societies and tried to adapt. When all else failed, they moved on. [read more...]NM technology association honors seven women
New Mexico Business Weekly reports that The New Mexico Information Technology and Software Association honored seven women on April 3 for outstanding contributions to the technology industry. Among them was Irene Anne Lee from the Santa Fe Institute. NMITSA firmly believes that only a full-time regional information technology association (RITA) can raise the competitiveness and presence of New Mexico's IT sector relative to other competitor regions throughout the United States and the world. [read more...]Physicists model how we form opinions
Stefan Thurner of the Medical University of Vienna and the Santa Fe Institute and other researchers in a recent issue of Europhysics Letters, say our individual opinions both influence and are influenced by our surroundings. By following a set of rules, the researchers have modeled the opinion formation process in societies where individuals’ opinions are strongly influenced by others they interact with. The scientists found that, depending on two criteria – how strongly individuals are influenced by each other and how many connections individuals have – a society’s overall state can exhibit either large segregated patches of consensus, or areas with closely intermingled opinions. [read more...]Gorbachev calls for more international cooperation
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev decries America's military buildup since the Cold War and he is calling for more international cooperation in addressing political and environmental problems. Gorbachev says the growing U.S. defense budget is pushing other countries to do the same and he contends that the expansion of conventional weapons also will undermine efforts to abolish nuclear weapons. Gorbachev, who left office in 1991, was in Santa Fe to deliver a speech to benefit the Santa Fe Institute, a research and education center. He made his comments at a news conference before his lecture. [read more...]SFI Researchers quoted in today's SF New Mexican
When it comes to understanding HIV, looking at the big picture sometimes isn't enough. What's really needed to understand how truly prolific the virus is, is to look at the big movie. That's what Los Alamos National Laboratories researcher (SFI External Faculty) Alan Perelson did when he was trying to figure out how fast the disease replicates throughout the human body. [read more...]External Professor Wagner resolves robustness and evolvability paradox
SFI External Professor Andreas Wagner considers RNA genotypes and their secondary structure phenotypes to resolve the paradox between robustness and evolvability. He writes that, while genotype robustness and evolvability share an antagonistic relationship, the phenotype robustness promotes structure evolvability. See Andreas Wagner, "Robustness and Evolvability: A Paradox Resolved," Proceedings of the Royal Society B - Biological Sciences 275, no. 1630 (2008): 91-100. [read more...]External Professor Schuster calls for joint effort in mathematics
Professor Peter Schuster suggests that, in addition to dynamic systems theory, different mathematical disciplines must jointly develop methods for handling the enormously complex networks of gene regulation and metabolism. He provides selected examples from his lab. See Monatshefte für Chemie - Chemical Monthly: An International Journal of Chemistry (v.139, #4). [read more...]Do words have definitions?
(SFI External Professor) Ray Jackendoff, a linguist at Tufts University, argued in his recent Foundations of Knowledge, that words do in fact have definitions. However, those definitions themselves are not made up of words composed into sentences Jackendoff has proposed that a very different system (lexical semantics) using different rules is employed when we learn the meanings of new words by combining little bits of meaning (that themselves may not map directly on to any words). [read more...]How to Turn a Herd on Wall St.
What makes a herd, financial or otherwise, stop and turn around? Specifically, behavioral experts want to know if there are psychological cues that can help transform this bear market into a bullish one. Experiments testing various versions of this game have shown that many players flip strategies in the middle of playing, apparently simply because they have set some private threshold for changing, like trying one strategy three times, “and if it doesn’t work, switch to the other one,” said Willemien Kets, a postdoctoral fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. Dr. Kets contends that this switching strategy can be successful precisely because others decide to stick to a congested road. “You see this ‘grass is always greener’ kind of behavior emerging,” Dr. Kets said in an interview, “which suggests that a variety of contrarian strategies will evolve naturally in the course of any such game because there are people who are more conservative in their strategies.” [read more...]SFI Workshop Featured in the Santa Fe New Mexican
An article by Santa Fe New Mexican science writer Sue Vorenberg explores the discussions from "Dominance, Leveling and Egalitarianism in Primates and Other Animals," a Workshop organized by SFI Professor Sam Bowles. [read more...]SFI's Irene Lee Nominated for the First Annual NMITSA 2008 Women in Technology Awards
Irene Lee, Project GUTS' Principal Investigator, was one of seven women honored at a luncheon April 3, 2008. [read more...]Gorbachev To Lecture in Santa Fe: Former Soviet leader expected to speak on the environment and nuclear disarmament
The Albuquerque Journal reports that the pro-green, antinuke message that Mikhail Gorbachev is expected to deliver during a speech in Santa Fe next month will come perhaps at a fitting time for northern New Mexico. While Gorbachev prefers to deliver his remarks from notes jotted down on a notepad, an associate said environmentalism and nuclear disarmament -- both hot topics in the City Different -- will likely be themes of a lecture he'll give during an April 14 visit, which is a fundraiser for the Santa Fe Institute. "He's called for the abolition of nuclear weapons," said Matt Peterson, head of Global Green USA, the U.S. affiliate of Green Cross International, which Gorbachev founded in 1993. [read more...]External Faculty Member Kohler's New Research on Climate, Famine, and Violence in the Southwest
Professor Timothy Kohler and coauthors present new archaeological research and computer simulation which suggest why Ancestral Puebloans deserted the Southwest United States. See American Scientist 96 (2008): 146-153. [read more...]SFI Postdoc van Doorn Studies Animal Personalities
Sander van Doorn, SFI Postdoctoral Fellow, and his co-authors discuss how the more an individual stands to lose, the more cautious that individual should be. Further, a branching point is not needed for the emergence of polymorphism; the emergence of individual differences is a robust phenomenon. See Nature 451, E8-E9 (28 February 2008). [read more...]SFI Listed As the “Rising Star” Institution for Environmental Science/Ecology
Thompson Scientific Science Watch of March 2008, lists the Santa Fe Institute as a “rising star” institution for Environmental Science/Ecology - a repeat honor. ScienceWatch.com produces a listing of the scientists, institutions, countries, and journals that have achieved the highest percentage increase in total citations from the fourth bimonthly period of 2007 to the fifth bimonthly period of 2007—that is, from August 2007 to October 2007. [read more...]External Professor Bettencourt studies influenza and pandemics
External Faculty Member Luis Bettencourt studies influenza transmission and mortality in 1918 Great Britain, which may be useful in pandemic planning. See Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences 275 (1634), March 7 2008, p. 501-509. [read more...]UPI reports on pendulums studied in mixed reality state
CHAMPAIGN, Ill., March 12 (UPI) -- U.S. physicists have used a virtual and real pendulum to create the first mixed reality state in a physical system. (SFI and) University of Illinois scientists said through bidirectional instantaneous coupling, each pendulum "sensed" the other, their motions became correlated and the two began swinging as one. "In a mixed reality state there is no clear boundary between the real system and the virtual system," said (SFI External Professor) Associate Professor Alfred Hubler. "The line blurs between what's real and what isn't." In the experiment, Hubler and graduate student Vadas Gintautas connected a mechanical pendulum to a virtual one. The researchers sent data about the real pendulum to the virtual one, and sent information about the virtual pendulum to a motor that influenced motion of the real pendulum. When the lengths of the two pendulums were dissimilar, they remained in a dual reality state. When the lengths of the pendulums were similar, however, they "suddenly noticed each other, synchronized their motions, and danced together indefinitely," said Hubler. The experiment and its potential ramifications are to be discussed this week in New Orleans during the annual meeting of the American Physical Society. [read more...]SFI Trustee compares heterogeneous data in interdisciplinary effort
Robert McCormick Adams, SFI Trustee, provides an overview of the interdisciplinary efforts to compare heterogeneous data--circumscribed, formulaic and myopic limitations of 20,000 cuneiform tablets which omit large population elements, with the archeological record and satellite imagery--for the city and province of UMMA in 21st century B.C. Available online at the Cuneiform Digital Library Journal, http://cdli.ucla.edu/pubs/cdlj.html. [read more...]SFI Professor edits volume on genetic imprinting
SFI Professor Jon F. Wilkins has edited a new volume entitled Genomic Imprinting, co- published in January 2008 by Springer and Landes Bioscience. For more information, see the SFI Update for February or contact the publisher at www.landesbioscience.com/books/; then search for "Wilkins." [read more...]New research into "mixed reality states" promises Matrix-like "whoa"
The experiment, the first fully successful one of its kind, sounds simple but raises mind-blowing questions about reality. According to (SFI External Professor) Illinois physicist Alfred Hubler, "In a mixed reality state there is no clear boundary between the real system and the virtual system. The line blurs between what’s real and what isn’t." Hubler describes the pendulums synchronization, stating, "[The pendulums] suddenly noticed each other, synchronized their motions, and danced together indefinitely." Hubler thinks that eventually coupling of the real and virtual worlds, may lead to it being hard to tell what is real and what is fake -- a topic immortalized by generations of science fiction writers. [read more...]Mathematical modelling offers new strategies for fighting hospital infections
A mathematical model that looks at different strategies for curbing hospital-acquired infections suggests that antimicrobial cycling and patient isolation may be effective approaches when patients are harbouring dual-resistant bacteria. The model was developed by a team led by (SFI External Professor) Carlos Castillo-Chavez, an Arizona State University (ASU) Professor. [read more...]Former leader of Soviet Union to speak in Santa Fe
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, will speak on the end of the Cold War and coming environmental problems during a visit to Santa Fe next month to benefit the Santa Fe Institute. The 77-year-old Gorbachev was Soviet president from 1990 to 1991 and general secretary of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 1985 to 1991. His speech, "Gorbachev on Leadership: From the End of the Cold War to the Growing Environmental Crisis," is scheduled at 6:30 p.m. April 14 at Santa Fe's Lensic Performing Arts Center. [read more...]Tickets now on sale for SFI Lecture "Gorbachev on Leadership"
On Monday, April 14 Nobel Peace Prize Winner and former leader of the Soviet Union (1985-1991) President Mikhail Gorbachev will present a benefit lecture on behalf of the Santa Fe Institute. This event is underwritten by the Peters Family Art Foundation. [read more...]Research by SFI External Professor Herbert Gintis (Central European University) published in Science
Gintis says data from economic games show that the effectiveness of punishment in fostering cooperation varies greatly from society to society. [read more...]Forbes: The Billionaire Inventors
There is little else that unites them, beyond having had an odd idea that, in retrospect, seems so simple and obvious, it provokes the universal reaction, "Why on Earth didn't I think of that?" Take (SFI Trustee) Pierre Omidyar: The French-born computer programmer realized the Internet could match buyers and sellers to create an electronic flea market of unprecedented scale. That light-bulb moment became the online auction site eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ), launched in 1995. Today, eBay is a primary or secondary source of income for more than a million people--and the basis of Omidyar's $7.7 billion fortune. [read more...]SFI External Professor John Geanakoplos (Yale University) in The Wall Street Journal
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has cut the Fed's target federal-funds rate several times since September in an effort to soften the blow of a credit logjam to the economy. Still, the credit crunch seems to keep getting worse. Interest rates on everything from high-yield, or junk, bonds to mortgages are going up, not down. Now investors and economists are lining up with ideas of what else poor Mr. Bernanke ought to do. John Geanakoplos, a respected Yale economist, says the problem isn't interest rates, it is collateral. When the credit cycle turns, lenders' collateral requirements reverse from too easy to too tough. [read more...]MIT: Turning 'funky' quantum mysteries into computing reality
The strange world of quantum mechanics can provide a way to surpass limits in speed, efficiency and accuracy of computing, communications and measurement, according to research by (SFI External Professor) MIT scientist Seth Lloyd. "There are limits, if you think classically," said Lloyd, a professor in MIT ’s Research Laboratory of Electronics and Department of Mechanical Engineering. But while classical physics imposes limits that are already beginning to constrain things like computer chip development and precision measuring systems, "once you think quantum mechanically you can start to surpass those limits," he said. [read more...]Watch "Making the World Flat: Science and Technology in the Developing World" by SFI External Professor Nina V. Fedoroff
SFI External Professor Nina V. Fedoroff is Special Adviser, Science and Technology, U.S. Department of State; Evan Pugh Professor of Biology and Willaman Professor of Life Sciences, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University. [read more...]SFI External Professor Fabrizio Lillo receives Young Scientist Award for Socio and Econophysics 2008
[read more...]TED conference begins in Monterey
The San Francisco Chronicle follows the TED conference as it begins in Monterey. "The mix of attendees speaks largely to the conference's evolution over the years, growing from a fairly geeky tech confab into a global think fest with the mandate of solving the world's problems. There ... noted tech thinker (SFI Trustee) Esther Dyson chats up (SFI Trustee) eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. [read more...]A Life on the Edge
Few writers have captured the grandeur and cruelty of the American frontier more vividly than Cormac McCarthy. As the film of his novel 'No Country for Old Men' sweeps the Oscars, Boyd Tonkin explores the psychological landscape that shaped his vision [read more...]Looking at life through DNA
While visiting the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, Anita Goel began thinking more deeply about theories that might adequately describe the interaction of DNA molecular motors with their environment. The 29 year-old researcher in the physics department at Harvard, hopes to learn how ... the environment can affect the motor's operation. "I find it intriguing," says Goel, "that conditions within cells can affect the flow of information encoded in DNA." [read more...]SFI External Professor Marcus Feldman (Stanford University) and collaborators published in February 21 issue of Science Magazine
Human genetic diversity is shaped by both demographic and biological factors and has fundamental implications for understanding the genetic basis of diseases. We studied 938 unrelated individuals from 51 populations of the Human Genome Diversity Panel at 650,000 common single-nucleotide polymorphism loci. Individual ancestry and population substructure were detectable with very high resolution. The relationship between haplotype heterozygosity and geography was consistent with the hypothesis of a serial founder effect with a single origin in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, we observed a pattern of ancestral allele frequency distributions that reflects variation in population dynamics among geographic regions. This data set allows the most comprehensive characterization to date of human genetic variation. [read more...]SFI Professor Samuel Bowles featured in The Economist
An important feature of moral behaviour is altruism. Normally, biologists explain this as being either nepotism or you- scratch- my- back- and- I'll- scratch- yours. But Dr Bowles believes people do perform acts which cost them more than they gain. [read more...]National Geographic: Massive Genetic Study Supports "Out of Africa" Theory
A massive new study (in Science) of human genetic diversity reveals surprising insights into our species' evolution and migrations—including support for the theory that the first modern humans originated in Africa—scientists said today. Researchers compared 650,000 genetic markers in nearly a thousand individuals from 51 populations around the globe—an unprecedented level of detail for a human genetic study. "You get less and less variation the further you go from Africa," said Marcus Feldman, an evolutionary biologist at Stanford University in California and a study co-author. Such a pattern fits the theory that the first modern humans settled the world in stepping-stone fashion after leaving Africa less than 100,000 years ago. [read more...]The Economist: Moral Thinking describes SFI Research Professor Sam Bowles' latest research
(Research outlined at the recent AAAS annual meeting in Boston,) Dr Bowles, however, thinks that the virtues of human collaboration are so great that groups composed of genuine, self-sacrificing altruists would outcompete others. His best example of such self-sacrifice is warfare, an activity in which morality and immorality intersect in ways that have always been puzzling—and where liberals and conservatives often draw opposite conclusions about what is right and wrong. Paradoxically, that clash of views suggests that Dr Bowles and Dr Wilson really are on to something with the idea of functional morality. [read more...]Nature reports on the international trend toward interdisciplinary science centers
Traditional universities such as University College London are restructuring to encourage interdisciplinary research, inspired by the purpose-built Janelia Farm Research Center and Santa Fe Institute, which created complexity theory. [read more...]Best Motion Picture of the Year - Oscar goes to "No Country for Old Men"
SFI Research Fellow Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel, adapted into a screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen, received four Oscars during the Academy Award ceremony held on February 24, in the following categories: Best Motion Picture of the Year, Achievement in Directing, Adapted Screenplay, and Actor in a Supporting Role. [read more...]SFI External Professor John Geanakoplos (Yale University) in The Wall Street Journal
Yale economist John Geanakoplos's concept of the leverage cycle shows how negative-feedback loops are driving today's economy. When times are good, credit is ample, causing the economy to heat up. When the cycle shifts, lenders tighten standards and become more demanding about the collateral they hold, feeding into the negative-feedback loops hitting the economy. [read more...]SFI Researchers to Speak at AAAS Annual Meeting
- SFI Professor Sam Bowles (University of Sienna) to speak Friday, February 15 at 10:30 a.m. on "Moral Judgment: Evolutionary and Psychological Perspectives" - SFI External Professor Nina Fedoroff (Advisor to the Secretary of State, U. S. Department of State and Penn Sate University) to speak at 1:45 p.m. Friday, February 15 on "Are There Diverse Paths to Progress in Global Science?" and again Saturday, February 16 Dr. Fedoroff will deliver the Plenary Lecture at 6:30 p.m. - SFI Professor Douglas Erwin (Smithsonian Institution) will speak Monday, February 16 at 9:15 a.m. on "Major Transformations in Evolution: The State of the Art and Public Understanding" [read more...]NY Post / Yahoo! Legg Work- Holder: Sweeten Deal
(SFI Trustee) Bill Miller is headlined internationally about Yahoo!'s possible merger with Microsoft. "The second-largest shareholder ...thinks the software giant will have to sweeten its offer to get the $44.6 billion deal done. Bill Miller, who runs Legg Mason's Value Trust fund, ...controls more than 80 million Yahoo! shares, or about 6 percent of the company, valued at roughly $2.3 billion...In the letter, he mentions press reports that claim Microsoft was prepared to pay over $40 a share for Yahoo! last year and that his own valuations of the company are in that range, although he didn't say how much he wants from Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer. "We think MSFT will need to enhance its offer if it wants to complete a deal," Miller said." [read more...]Now accepting applications for International Fellowship Program
[read more...]Now accepting applications for Graduate Workshop in Computational Social Science Modeling
[read more...]Komsomolskaya Pravda - Kirgistan/ Top 1000 Universities
Kirgistan's Pravda publishes a report listing Santa Fe Institute among the world's top higher education programs. [read more...]COMMENTARY The Coming Ad Revolution by (SFI Trustee) Esther Dyson
The discussion about privacy is changing as users take control over their own online data. While they spread their Web presence, these users are not looking for privacy, but for recognition as individuals -- whether by friends or vendors. This will eventually change the whole world of advertising. The current online-advertising model will become less effective, even as it gets increasingly sophisticated.... This approach (called behavioral targeting and already in service by ad networks that track users through so-called tracking cookies) undercuts traditional online publishers, who employ content to lure users and to sell adjacent ads....This does not mean that traditional online advertising will go away, just that it will become less effective. Value is being created in users' own walled gardens, which they will cultivate for themselves in real estate owned by the social networks. The new value creators are companies -- like Facebook and Dopplr -- that know how to build and support online communities. [read more...]EBay cuts listing fee for sellers at online auction website
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - EBay said on Tuesday it is cutting fees it charges people to offer items for sale and raising standards at the online auction website. In a move aimed at staving off increasing competition from the likes of Google and Craigslist, eBay is trimming fees it charges aspiring sellers by as much as halfThis is the first time eBay has offered incentives and discounts to sellers since it was founded in 1995 by (Santa Fe Institute Trustee and) French-born Iranian computer programmer Pierre Omidyar [read more...]EBay cuts listing fee for sellers at online auction website
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - EBay said on Tuesday it is cutting fees it charges people to offer items for sale and raising standards at the online auction website. In a move aimed at staving off increasing competition from the likes of Google and Craigslist, eBay is trimming fees it charges aspiring sellers by as much as halfThis is the first time eBay has offered incentives and discounts to sellers since it was founded in 1995 by (Santa Fe Institute Trustee and) French-born Iranian computer programmer Pierre Omidyar [read more...]SFI Trustee Michael Mauboussin (Legg Mason Capital Management) in Harvard Business Review's "Breakthrough Ideas for 2008"
(Santa Fe Institute Trustee) Michael Mauboussin says that as computing power grows and networks unleash the wisdom of crowds, the unique value of experts in making predictions and solving problems is steadily narrowing. This trend, “the expert squeeze,” doesn’t necessarily mean that expertise will become dispensable, only that organizations must change how they use experts. [read more...]SFI External Faculty Scott E. Page (University of Michigan) Interviewed in The New York Times
In the long-running debate on affirmative action, Scott E. Page, a professor of complex systems, political science and economics at the University of Michigan, is a fresh voice. His recently published book, “The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools and Societies” (Princeton University Press), uses mathematical modeling and case studies to show how variety in staffing produces organizational strength. [read more...]Now accepting applications for Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)
[read more...]Now accepting applications for the 2008 Complex Systems Summer Schools
[read more...]SFI External Professor Daniel Schrag (Harvard University) on Minnesota Public Radio
[read more...]SFI External Professor Daniel Schrag (Harvard University) featured in Cnet
[read more...]SFI Postdoc Dan Hruschka featured in Tuesday's New York Times
[read more...]SFI Postdoc G. S. van Doorn in Nature
The genetic mechanisms that determine sex in animals are extremely diverse, involving different sets of genes residing on different chromosomes. In an article in the October 17 issue of Nature G. S. van Doorn and M. Kirkpatrick posit that these patterns can be explained by linking sex determination genes to genes that improve survival rates in one sex to the detriment of the other sex. They have developed a mathematical model to show how genes that improve fitness in one sex at the expense of the other can hijack sex determination from one chromosome to another, thereby helping to explain the diversity of sex-determination mechanisms seen in nature. [read more...]Dr. Nina V. Fedoroff sworn in as Science and Technology Advisor to U.S. Secretary of State (PHOTO)
[read more...]SFI President and Distinguished Professor Geoffrey West on NPR
According to West, lifespan is connected to size. Elephants, for example, live longer than birds or field mice because the larger animals' hearts beat slower and use energy more efficiently. [read more...]SFI Trustee Michael Mauboussin (Legg Mason Capital Management) on NPR Science Friday
[read more...]Research by Virgil Griffith, 2005 REU Student, Featured in Wired Magazine and NPR
Wikipedia Scanner -- the brainchild of Cal Tech computation and neural-systems graduate student Virgil Griffith -- offers users a searchable database that ties millions of anonymous Wikipedia edits to organizations where those edits apparently originated, by cross-referencing the edits with data on who owns the associated block of internet IP addresses. [read more...]Samuel Bowles, Professor, Santa Fe Institute, in August 7 New York Times
For thousands of years, most people on earth lived in abject poverty, first as hunters and gatherers, then as peasants or laborers. But with the Industrial Revolution, some societies traded this ancient poverty for amazing affluence... [read more...]SFI President and Distinguished Professor Geoffrey B. West on public radio's Smart City:
The Biological City: Cities are like elephants. They get more economical with size. That's the conclusion of Dr. Geoffrey West, president of the Santa Fe Institute. Together with ecologist Jim Brown of the University of New Mexico, he is producing important new insights on how cities grow, why they fade, and what we can do about it. Read more and listen to the interview online. [read more...]SFI Professor Libby Wood (Yale University) featured on NPR's All Things Considered
[read more...]SFI External Professor Nina V. Fedoroff Named Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has named Dr. Nina V. Fedoroff to be her new Science and Technology Adviser. Dr. Fedoroff is the Willaman Professor of Life Sciences and Evan Pugh Professor in the Biology Department and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University. [read more...]SFI External Professor Nina V. Fedoroff receives National Medal of Science and Technology from President Bush
President George W. Bush announced the recipients of the nation's highest honor for science and technology, naming the recipients of the 2006 National Medals of Science and Technology. The National Science Foundation (NSF) administers the prestigious award program, which was established by Congress in 1959. It honors individuals for pioneering scientific research in a range of fields, including physical, biological, mathematical, social, behavioral and engineering sciences, that enhances our understanding of the world and leads to innovations and technologies that give the United States its global economic edge. 2006 National Medal of Science Laureates include SFI External Faculty Nina V. Fedoroff (Penn State University). [read more...]John Holland on NOVA Science Now
SFI External Faculty John Holland (University of Michigan) appeared on the July 10 broadcast of NOVA Science Now's program on emergence. The segment is available for online viewing. [read more...]SFI Professor Doug Erwin in Tuesday's New York Times
"Darwin Still Rules, but Some Biologists Dream of a Paradigm Shift," an essay by SFI Professor Doug Erwin (Smithsonian Institution) appeared in the June 26 issue of Science Times. [read more...]National Geographic article on swarm theory features Deborah Gordon
[read more...]"The Difference" by External Faculty Scott Page featured in Strategy + Business
[read more...]SFI President Geoffrey West Featured in May Issue of New Scientist
[read more...]"Scaling Metabolic Rate Fluctuations" appears in PNAS by SFI International Fellow Pablo Marquet
[read more...]The Motley Fool website expounds on benefits of association with SFI
[read more...]SFI Postdoctoral Fellow, Sander van Doorn, and SFI Visiting Researcher, Max Wolf in May 31 issue of Nature
New work by Max Wolf (University of Groningen; currently at the Santa Fe Institute), Santa Fe Institute Postdoctoral Fellow Sander van Doorn, Franz Weissing (University of Groningen), and Olof Leimar (Stockholm University) offers an explanation for the evolution of animal personalities. Their findings are detailed in "Life-history trade-offs favour the evolution of animal personalities" in the May 31 issue of Nature. [read more...]SFI Trustee Featured in International Herald Tribune
In a May 20 article entitled "Software Brings Gamelike Play to the Workplace," SFI Trustee J. Leighton Read (Alloy Ventures) commented on "whether work would not be better if it were not like a videogame." Read and CISCO co-sponsored "Collective Intelligence in Synthetic Environments" in February, 2007. (http://www.santafe.edu/network/events.php?pFilter=past). [read more...]SFI Researcher Duncan Watts on "The Politics of Eurovision" in May 22 New York Times
In "The Politics of Eurovision," Duncan J. Watts, SFI Researcher and Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, editorializes on the practice of "bloc voting" in this year's Eurovision contest. The article appeared in the May 22 issue of the New York Times. [read more...]Jessica Flack Posts Discussion on "The Road" on Oprah's Website
SFI Research Fellow Jessica Flack has posted "The Struggle for Survival: Conflict and Creativity" as SFI's next installment on the discussion board of Oprah's website for "The Road." [read more...]SFI Fellow Cormac McCarthy Wins 2007 Pulitzer Prize
SFI Fellow Cormac McCarthy has been awarded the prestigious 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his 2006 novel "The Road." McCarthy is the author of nine previous novels. Among his honors are the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. [read more...]Doug Erwin Discusses "The Road" on Oprah's Website
Now you can join McCarthy's colleagues from SFI as they explore themes and issues raised in The Road. Doug Erwin (SFI Professor & Smithsonian Institution) has contributed a discussion point entitled "The End of the World: Extinction and Reemergence of Life" on Oprah's website. [read more...]SFI Researcher in New York Times
An article by SFI Researcher Duncan J. Watts (Columbia University) appeared April 15 in the New York Times. Entitled, "Is Justin Timberlake a Product of Cumulative Advantage?" Watts details the extensive effects of cumulative advantage on everything from cultural marketing to business to politics. Watts is the author of "Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age." [read more...]Business Network Member James P. Hackett Featured in HBR
James P. Hackett, Business Network Member and CEO of Steelcase is featured in Harvard Business Review on "Preparing for the Perfect Product Launch." [read more...]Cormac McCarthy highlighted in New York Times
An April 10 article in the New York Times by Caryn James entitled "Web Sites and TV Talk Shows Puncture Holes in the Cloak of Invisibility," highlights SFI Fellow Cormac McCarthy's interview with Oprah as a sign of the vanishing cult of invisible celebrity. [read more...]Sander van Doorn has won one of the 2007 Young Investigator Prizes
Sander van Doorn has won one of the 2007 Young Investigator Prizes, awarded annually by the American Society of Naturalists. The prize was awarded for sexual selection and sympatric speciation. [read more...]West, Brown, and Enquist Collaboration Featured in The Scientist
Geoffrey West, James Brown, and Brian Enquist's landmark collaboration on the laws of biological scaling was featured in the March issue of The Scientist in an article entitled, "A Grand Unifying Theory of Biology?" The article covered the history of the collaboration as well as their most recent work on metabolic theory. [read more...]Study Could Affect HIV Vaccine
In today's issue of Science Magazine SFI Professor Tanmoy Bhattacharya and Visiting Researcher Bette Korber report the findings of a study that could affect an HIV vaccine. Friday's New Mexican quotes Korber as saying, "Since HIV escapes the immune system of the human host by mutation, and the virus finds multiple ways of escaping immune recognition, our findings have practical implications for defining relevant variants for inclusion in vaccine antigens" [read more...]New Book by Scott Page, SFI External Faculty, and John Miller, SFI Resident Faculty
Complex Adaptive Systems: An Introduction to Computational Models of Social Life" This book provides the first clear, comprehensive, and accessible account of complex adaptive social systems, by two of the field's leading authorities. Such systems--whether political parties, stock markets, or ant colonies--present some of the most intriguing theoretical and practical challenges confronting the social sciences. Engagingly written, and balancing technical detail with intuitive explanations, Complex Adaptive Systems focuses on the key tools and ideas that have emerged in the field since the mid-1990s, as well as the techniques needed to investigate such systems. It provides a detailed introduction to concepts such as emergence, self-organized criticality, automata, networks, diversity, adaptation, and feedback. It also demonstrates how complex adaptive systems can be explored using methods ranging from mathematics to computational models of adaptive agents." [read more...]Diverse Teams, Wise Crowds, and Informed Experts
The Business Network is pleased to announce its next Topical Meeting, held March 16 in Chicago, featuring SFI Trustee Michael Mauboussin and SFI External Faculty Scott Page. This meeting is by invitation only, but please contact Kay Frew (kfrew@santafe.edu) with questions. [read more...]SFI President & Faculty featured in HBR's List of Breakthrough Ideas for 2007
SFI President Geoffrey B. West, "Innovation and Growth: Size Matters," and External Faculty Duncan J. Watts, "The Accidental Influentials," are both featured in the Harvard Business Review's List of Breakthrough Ideas for 2007. [read more...]New Book by Scott Page, SFI External Faculty
"The Difference - How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies" by SFI External Faculty and University of Michigan Professor, Scott E. Page was released January 15, 2007. In this landmark book, Page redefines the way we understand ourselves in relation to one another by revealing that progress and innovation may depend less on lone thinkers than on diverse people working together and capitalizing on their individuality. Page changes the way we understand diversity - how to harness its untapped potential, how to understand and avoid its traps, and how we can leverage our differences for the benefit of all. [read more...]"More Than You Know": A Business Week "Best Business Book of 2006"
" More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places, " by SFI Trustee and Business Network Member Michael Mauboussin was named one of Business Week's "Best Business Books of 2006. " Mauboussin, of Legg Mason Capital Management, writes, "You will be a better investor, executive, parent, friend, or person if you approach problems from a multidisciplinary perspective." Click here to read the full article. "More Than You Know" was distributed to Business Network Members in June 2006. [read more...]SFI Chairman Bill Miller Highlighted in Fortune Magazine
SFI Trustee and Chairman of the Board Bill Miller, of Legg Mason Capital Management, was highlighted in a recent November issue of Fortune Magazine. The article, "The Greatest Money Manager of our Time," noted Miller's close affiliation with SFI regulars such as Prof. Murray Gell-Mann, SFI President Geoffrey West, Norman Johnson, and SFI Trustees Joy Covey, Gary Bengier, Jim Rutt, and David Weinberger. Click here to read the full article. [read more...]Geoff West to lecture at ASU
Dr. West will lecture on Universal Scaling Laws in Biology from Genomes to Ecosystems: Towards a Quantitative Theory of Biological Structure and Organization. The lecture takes place on January 23, 2007 at 7pm in Room 104, Life Sciences E-Wing. [read more...]Newman in Atlantic Monthly
Mark Newman, SFI External Faculty & Professor of Physics was featured in the January/February 2007 issue of Atlantic Monthly in an article by P.J. O'Rourke entitled, "Where Big Ideas Will Come From." With geographers from the University of Sheffield's Social and Spatial Inequalities Research Group, Newman is credited with creating Worldmapper, a program examined for its ability to predict what places are likely o be the most innovative in the future by turning statistical information into vivid maps.
Link to article (requires log in): http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200701/orourke-innovation
Link to Worldmapper: http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/ [read more...]Colloquium - December 7th, 2006
Colloquium Series - "Operating on the Edge of Chaos at Google," by Shona Brown, Vice President Google, Robert N. Noyce Conference Room, 3:30 P.M. to 4:30 P.M. [read more...]Sherrington Honored
David Sherrington (SFI External Faculty) has been chosen to receive the 2007 Dirac Medal and Prize of the UK Institute of Physics. Congratulations! [read more...]Bowles Keynote Speaker at World Bank
Samuel Bowles (SFI Professor) will present a keynote address to the human development and economics staff of the World Bank (all 700 of them) at their annual Human Development Week, October 31-November 3. [read more...]SIM Student Featured
Malika Hale, a participant in the 2006 Student Internship/Mentorship (SIM) Program, is featured in a Time magazine article, in which she talks about her SFI project (see p. 2). [read more...]Curran Awarded MacArthur Fellowship
SFI External Professor Lisa Curran has been awarded a 2006 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Lisa is a Professor in the School of Forestry and Environmental Sciences at Yale University. [read more...]Postdoc Campaign Opens
SFI is accepting applications for postdoctoral fellowships until November 20. [read more...]McCarthy's Tenth Novel
Cormac McCarthy's tenth novel entitled The Road was featured in the September 4 Newsweek as a "hotly anticipated novel", and is scheduled for release September 26, 2006. [read more...]Schuster and the Pope on Evolution
Peter Schuster (SFI External Faculty, President Austrian Academy of Sciences) was the first presenter in the annual weekend seminar held by Pope Benedict XVI (formerly Professor Joseph Ratzinger) for his old doctoral students. This year's seminar is on evolution. [read more...]Kohler Awarded NSF Grant
Timothy A. Kohler (SFI External Faculty) along with colleagues from WSU and the University of Washington have been awarded a five-year IGERT grant (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program) for a program in evolutionary modeling. [read more...]Resident Faculty Search
SFI has opened a search for Resident Faculty and Sabbatical Visitors. [read more...]Gov. Richardson Appoints Jim Rutt
Jim Rutt (Vice Chair, SFI Board of Trustees) has been named to the New Mexico State Investment Council by Governor Bill Richardson. [read more...]McCarthy Play in New York
"The Sunset Limited" a play by Cormac McCarthy, is coming to Theaters in New York October 24 through November 19. [read more...]Brown Elected to ASM
James Brown (University of New Mexico Professor and SFI External Faculty and Science Steering Committee Member) was recently elected Honorary Member, the highest honor conferred by the ASM (American Society of Mammalogists). [read more...]2006 Ulam Lectures
Nina Fedoroff (Evan Pugh Professor of Biology, Willaman Professor of Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University and SFI External Professor) will be giving the Ulam lectures this year. They will be held on September 12, 13, and 14, at the James A. Little Theater beginning at 7:30 P.M. [read more...]Axtell and Epstein in Economist
"The Cambrian Age of Economics" in the July 20, 2006 issue of The Economist mentions SFI External Faculty Rob Axtell and Joshua Epstein. [read more...]West is Here to Stay
Geoffrey West, SFI President and Distinguished Professor, is pictured and quoted in the Profiles section of New Mexico Magazine (August, 2006). [read more...]SFI Trustee Featured
Pierre Omidyar (eBay Founder and SFI Trustee) is featured in the July 3, 2006, issue of Newsweek "The Giving Back Awards: 15 People Who Make America Great." [read more...]Rainfall and Magnetism
SFI Postdoctoral Fellow Ole Peters and UCLA climatologist J. David Neelin have published their findings in the June, 2006, issue of Nature Physics as well as on the NSF website. [read more...]Traub Donates Archives to CMU
Joe Traub (Columbia University and SFI External Faculty) has donated 100 boxes of archival material to the Carnegie Mellon University Library. This collection is in the process of being digitized. [read more...]Cardenas in Science
Juan Camilo Cardenas (Universidad de los Andes, Bogota) is one of the authors of "Costly Punishment Across Human Societies" that appears in the June 2006 issue of Science (Vol. 312 no. 5781, pp. 1767-1770). [read more...]Schuster Elected President
Peter Schuster (University of Vienna and SFI External Faculty) has been elected President of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Congratulations, Peter! [read more...]Erwin on Extinction
The new book "Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago" by Doug Erwin (Smithsonian Institution Senior Scientist and SFI Research Faculty) is now available. Doug will also be giving a public lecture in Santa Fe on July 12 entitled, "The Mother of Mass Extinctions." [read more...]Farmer and Arthur in Nature
"Culture Crash," on the pros and cons of econophysics, includes quotes from Doyne Farmer and Brian Arthur. In the same issue, see the related editorial, "Econophysicists Matter" (subscription required). [read more...]Lloyd's New Book
"Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On the Cosmos," by Seth Lloyd (MIT and external faculty at SFI), received a very nice write-up in the New York Times Sunday Book Review . [read more...]Evolution Beneath the Waves
Drew Allen, former member of SFI's weekly scaling group, appeared on NPR to discuss his current work in evolutionary biology. The paper that the story references appears in the June 13 issue of PNAS and is co-authored with several SFI-affiliated researchers including Van Savage and Jim Brown. [read more...]2006 Fellowship Recipient
John Mark Agosta, of Intel Corp., is the recipient of the 2006 Business Network Fellowship. In his application, John proposed to apply methods with origins in Bayesian decision theory and modeling to autonomous collaboration among networked computers. At Intel, John is part of Intel Research's DDI network intrusion project, where his work involves developing probabilistic models for intelligent diagnosis and management. [read more...]New Book By Business Network Member (PDF)
Eric Beinhocker, of McKinsey Global Institute, has written a new book, The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics. Aimed at a non-academic general and business audience, Eric's book prominently features the work of SFI researchers such as Professor J. Doyne Farmer and Professor Sam Bowles. Read a review of the book in Wired magazine. [read more...]Secondary School Honors
SFI is pleased to honor eleven Santa Fe area high school seniors and one area teacher with the 2006 Prize for Scientific Excellence. [read more...]Business Network Member Featured in Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business Review selected Jeffrey R. Cares, President & CEO of SFI Business Network Member Alidade Incorportaed, for HBR's The List -- Breakthrough Ideas for 2006. Jeff was featured at #5 -- Battle of the Networks. The article appeared in the May 2006 issue. [read more...]McCarthy Honored
The New York Times Book Review has identified former SFI Visiting Researcher Cormac McCarthy's novel "Blood Meridian" as one of the best works of American fiction in the last 25 years. [login required] [read more...]West "In Focus"
SFI President Geoffrey West will be featured on the KNME-TV program "In Focus" tomorrow night, Friday, May 12 at 7:30 P.M. (channel 5). A taped copy of the interview will be available in the library. [read more...]Speakers Confirmed for June Meeting
Stephanie Forrest, Geoffrey West, Raissa D'Souza, and Melanie Moses have been confirmed as speakers for the Topical Meeting scheduled for June 28 in Seattle, WA. [read more...]Public Lecture Tonight
Michael Mauboussin, Senior Vice President, Legg Mason Capital Management, Inc., will give a talk entitled "More than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places" on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 at 7:30 pm at the James A. Little Theater. [read more...]SFI President in TIME's 100 Most Influential People
SFI President Geoffrey West was chosen in the "scientists and thinker" category for bringing one of the research community's most versatile minds to bear on some of nature's most complex questions. This special double issue edition of TIME Magazine is available on newsstands, May 1, 2006. [read more...]Buelteman Featured in New Mexico Magazine
For a sampling of Robert Buelteman's electrifying images of flowers and leaves see the cover and article in the May 2006 issue. Also see Robert's work as part of an exhibition at the Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe, June 9-July 4, 2006. [read more...]Registration Deadline
Today is the last day to register for the Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation Course. [read more...]Public Lecture Tomorrow Night
Christian de Duve, Nobel Laureate (Medicine 1974); Founder, International Institute of Cellular and Molecular Pathology; and Professor Emeritus, University of Louvain and Rockefeller University, will give a talk entitled "The Origin of Life" on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 at 7:00 pm at the James A. Little Theater. [read more...]Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation Course
Argonne National Laboratory and SFI will be hosting an intensive introduction to agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS) with a focus on business applications on April 24-28, 2006. [read more...]Winter 2006 Bulletin Available
The current issue of this annual magazine informs SFI's friends and supporters about work at the Institute (PDF 19 MB). [read more...]SFI Featured in National Geographic
SFI is mentioned in the March 2006 issue of National Geographic. "The Origin of Life Through Chemistry," an article by Joel Achenbach, describes work by Harold Morowitz, Professor, George Mason University, and Eric Smith, Professor, SFI. [read more...]SFI Featured in the Santa Fean
"The Science of Synergy" by Elizabeth Wolf in the March 2006 issue focuses on SFI and includes discussions with George Cowan, Murray Gell-Mann, and Geoffrey West. Download the article in PDF format (704 KB). [read more...]Watts in Science
Duncan Watts (External Faculty) coauthored a report in the February 10, 2006 issue of Science entitled "Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market." [read more...]Erwin on Extinction
Doug Erwin (SFI External Faculty Member and Chair of the Science Steering Committee) has a new book entitled, Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago. [read more...]Public Lecture Tonight
Dean Falk, Hale G. Smith Professor and Chair, Anthropology, Florida State University, will give a talk entitled "The Hobbit of Flores Island: Body and Soul" on Wednesday, February 22, 2005 at 7:00 pm at the Lensic Performing Arts Center. [read more...]Workshop Extends Deadline
The workshop in the Foundations of Theoretical Medicine now has ongoing admissions. [read more...]CSSS Application Process Ends
The application process has closed for the 2006 Complex Systems Summer Schools in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Beijing, China. Thanks to everyone for their interest. [read more...]SFI Researchers featured in Nature
The work of SFI researchers Jessica Flack, Michelle Girvan, and David Krakauer, along with Frans B. M. de Waal (Emory University), is featured in the January 26, 2006 issue in "Policing Stabilizes Construction of Social Niches in Primates." This work on a group of pigtailed macaques demonstrates how niche construction can modify the behavior of primates within social networks. [read more...]Business Network Fellowship 2006
The 2006 Business Network Fellowship position is open to individuals from member companies of the Santa Fe Institute Business Network. This position allows an individual up to four weeks of visitation at the Institute over a two-year period to pursue research congruent with the science of the Santa Fe Institute. One Fellowship per year is awarded. [read more...]Europhysics News Online
The European Physical Society has posted its Special Annual Issue of Europhysics News (European analog of Physics Today) which includes articles by Murray Gell-Mann, Yuzuru Sato, and Constantino Tsallis. SFI is mentioned in several places. [read more...]2006 Public Lecture Series
This annual series of public lectures is designed to present SFI science to anyone who is interested, including non-scientists. All lectures are free and the public is encouraged to attend. [read more...]Theoretical Medicine Workshop
Applications are now being accepted for "The Foundations of Theoretical Medicine", SFI's Summer Math Modeling workshop. The deadline for applications is February 15, 2006. [read more...]
