News + Events

A recent analysis statistically connected words appearing in the texts of 591 national constitutions lends new support to the notion of the birth of a nation.

This December 4-5, SFI researchers are convening a workshop to discuss how to study figurative brains such as ant colonies, microbe ecosystems, and the immune system. 

The first annual InterPlanetary Festival will draw space enthusiasts from around the world for a two-day celebration of human ingenuity June 7-8, 2018, in Santa Fe, NM.

Exploring the limits of scientific understanding is the query that will drive a three-day workshop at SFI, which itself aims to understand how well scientific and mathematical reasoning can comprehend complex systems.

The journal Nature Ecology and Evolution has compiled a list of  "100 articles every ecologist should read." Fifteen of the articles listed are authored or co-authored by SFI faculty.

SFI Professor Cristopher Moore and External Professor John Rundle have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In a new paper, SFI's Jessica Flack offers a practical answer to one of the most significant, and most confused questions in evolutionary biology — can higher levels of organization drive the behavior of lower-level components?

SFI researchers quantify the thermodynamic efficiency of a fundamental biological computation. 

Research by several SFI faculty appears in a special issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Series A, dedicated to the fundamental question of how complex life originated. 

SFI's inaugural Complexity Challenge asked participants in SFI's education programs to apply their studies to an abstracted, real-world problem. Read more about the challenge and the winning solutions.

The Santa Fe Institute’s Board of Trustees has welcomed William Gurley of Benchmark Capital and James Pallotta of Raptor Group.

Nick Lane presented a lecture on energy and Matter at the Origin of Life at The Lensic Performing Arts Center on November 7. Watch his talk here.

In a new paper in Nature Communications, three SFI-affiliated researchers describe a trio of paradoxical dynamics that can arise in simple microbial economies. The paper looks at just one type of scenario: a self-sufficiency model where two types of microbes are producing goods that are valuable to both themselves and others. 

The Santa Fe Institute has welcomed seven new external faculty for 2017.

A theorem published this week in the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics suggests that greater engagement in the international exchange can actually reinforce productivity-impeding practices that keep countries in poverty.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B features SFI research in its latest themed issue on innovations

On Tuesday, October 17, Manfred Laubichler led a panel discussion on the unprecedented ways in which human activity has shaped the planet. Watch the panel discussion here.

The newly-established SFI Press is pleased to announce the publication of its first volume, History, Big History, & Metahistory.

In his new book, The Diversity Bonus: How Great Teams Pay Off in the Knowledge Economy, SFI External Professor Scott Page traces a causative path to the benefits that emerge when people possessing a variety of “cognitive repertoires” come together to think, solve, and create.

In the Middle Ages, did contracting leprosy necessarily increase a person's chances of dying? Yes, says a new paper. But it's complicated.