News + Events

Regional weather extremes seen in recent years could share a common physical cause, according to a new study by scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and SFI.

Speaking at SFI yesterday, noted climate scientist James Hansen told an overflow crowd that efforts to stem climate change will be ineffectual as long as fossil fuels remain the cheapest form of energy.

A four-year, $2.9 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is supporting SFI research that will, the researchers hope, prompt a more nuanced understanding of networks.

A new quantitative study of the online multiplayer game Pardus examines ways men and women manage their social networks drastically different, even online.

A new research project now under way at SFI, in collaboration with Slum Dwellers International and backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, seeks to expand the scientific study of urban slums worldwide.

The Atlantic's Richard Florida takes a look at innovation and its relationships with patents and cities, citing views of SFI's W. Brian Arthur and research by frequent SFI collaborators Deborah Strumsky and Jose Lobo.

SFI External Professor Jon Wilkins discusses his Ronin Institute, which is providing a platform for unaffiliated academics to continue to contribute to scholarly progress.

Bret Swanson of the American Enterprise Institute reviews ideas from physics and information theory that he believes shed light on the current economic stagnation.

“Darwin’s Extra Sense,” a new video produced by SFI External Professor Dan Rockmore and collaborators, explores the ways applied mathematics is opening doors to astonishing insights in the life sciences – from evolutionary biology to protein folding and brain science.

NPR reviews SFI research finding that, at the species level, average lifespans for larger animals is longer, and for smaller animals shorter, and that a simple formula seems to describe the average lifespans of all living things.

BBC blogger Gaia Vince reviews the sustainability benefits of dense urban living and cites research by SFI's cities and urbanization team.

A recent visit by W. Brian Arthur to Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU) prompted an interview in which he reviews the history of complexity science and his association with SFI.

Running thousands of simulations of two-person games with many possible payoffs yields support for a hypothesis that some games are unlearnable, and that equilibrium models are not terribly relevant for understanding players' decisions in complex games and financial markets.

On and in our bodies is a community with ten times as many microbes as there are cells of a human host, which makes counting species and comparing diversity an intractable problem.

Members of SFI’s Business Network have an opportunity to enjoy some quality SFI time as part of the Business Network. Fellowship Fellows spend up to four weeks over a two- year period at SFI researching a topic that applies complexity science directly to their business interests.

More than 3,200 people, from professors and professionals to college students and the just-curious, have signed up to learn more about the first in a series of SFI massive open online courses (MOOCs) in complexity, scheduled to begin in late January.

On NPR's Science Friday, SFI External Professor and Science Board member Seth Lloyd explains quantum mechanics, entanglement, Planck's constant, quantum computing, and the all-around "funkiness" of the quantum world.

In an interview in Alliance magazine, SFI Distinguished Professor Geoffrey West appeals for a broader, networks-oriented view of problem solving, and philanthropy.

Some big names in science are expected to attend a meeting in February at CERN on the origin of life, writes the Huffington Post's Suzan Mazur, who cites work by two longtime SFI researchers.

Two SFI researchers have contributed to a new approach to a formerly intractable problem: counting species and comparing the diversity of microbial life on and inside the human body.