Santa Fe Institute

Laura Fortunato is among researchers studying the evolution of language and words -- and cultural practices -- much as biologists study how living organisms evolve, according to a New Scientist cover story.

An article in The Guardian about ways to build sustainable cities offers advice from several experts, beginning with SFI Professor Luis Bettencourt.

Research by SFI Professor Sam Bowles on the co-evolution of agriculture and private property features prominently in a review in Current Biology about scientists' current understanding of the transition from foraging to farming.

Cities have been compared to everything from beehives to river networks, but most of these metaphors fall short. SFI Professor Luis Bettencourt looks to the data to suggest a new way of thinking about how cities function and grow.

In a cover paper in the June 20 issue of Science, SFI Professor Luis Bettencourt offers a unified, quantitative framework for understanding how cities function and grow.

Was the mound-building settlement of Cahokia, near modern-day St. Louis, the seat of a small state or a jumbo-sized chiefdom? Experts gathered at SFI recently to try to settle the matter.

SFI Professor Paula Sabloff's anthropological research to understand Mongolians' desire for democracy is featured in the Santa Fe New Mexican.

It has long been assumed that the advent of farming 12 millennia ago led to the advent of private property rights. A new paper and some mathematical modeling by SFI researchers tell a very different story.

SFI’s interactive science magazine, the SFI Bulletin, is now live. Our first issue of 2013, "States of Complexity," explores the increasing complexity of human society.

In revisiting whether the productivity of cities is linked most directly to city size or population density, Forbes contributor Joel Kotkin cites SFI research.