News + Events

Physicists at the Santa Fe Institute and MIT have shown that Markov processes, widely used to model complex systems, must unfold over a larger space than previously assumed.

A new edition of Emerging Syntheses in Science, edited by SFI co-founder David Pines and published through SFI Press, offers a fresh window into SFI's founding meetings, including never-before-published transcripts and essays.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute and the Santa Fe Institute have developed a new model to explain the evolutionary origins of empathy and other related phenomena, such as emotional contagion and contagious yawning. The model suggests that the origin of a broad range of empathetic responses lies in cognitive simulation.

A new review by David Wolpert collects recent advances in understanding the thermodynamics of computation that are grounded in computer science and physics.

SFI External Professor Laura Fortunato presented a Community Lecture at The Lensic on Tuesday, April 16, 2019, on the challenges and opportunities from using studies of social animals to inform our understanding of how human social behavior evolves.

What are viruses? Are they even alive? SFI external professors Ricard Solé and Santiago F. Elena tackle these and other questions through a complex systems approach in their new book.

The Economist highlights how a complex systems approach to economics adds critical nuance to traditional approaches to the field.

A "big dating" study by External Professors Elizabeth Bruch and Mark Newman reveals that geographic distance within the U.S. is the strongest driver of instances when two users message each other.

Working group meets to explore how and why people categorize phenomena into overly simplistic distinctions. 

Research jams, intercontinental collaborations, and lightning talks — the Postdocs in Complexity Conference is back!

Working group meets to formalize a better understanding of human cell types.

SFI External Professor Simon DeDeo and co-authors are recipients of the 2018 Cozzarelli Prize, awarded by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for their paper “Individuals, institutions, and innovation in the debates of the French Revolution.” 

The new book Pertussis: Epidemiology, Immunology, and Evolution, edited by former SFI Omidyar Fellow Samuel Scarpino and Pejman Rohani, is the first major aggregation of interdisciplinary whooping-cough research in decades. 

New SFI research explores the unintended consequences of removing aboriginal people from their lands, with big implications for a more sustainable future.

The Santa Fe Institute again has ranked among the world's top science and technology and transdisciplinary think tanks.

The AIP journal Chaos has announced that “Anatomy of leadership in collective behavior,” co-authored by SFI Omidyar Fellow Joshua Garland, former Omidyar Fellow Andrew Berdahl, and their collaborators, is among the most-downloaded papers of 2018.

Jennifer Dunne, Stefani Crabtree, and colleagues present their ArcheoEcology work in two back-to-back symposia, “How Human Interactions with Biodiversity Shape Socio-Ecological Dynamics in Deep Time” on Sunday, Feb. 17 at 1:30 and 3:30 pm at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington, D.C.

Historian Andrea Wulf and philosopher John Kaag have been named Miller Scholars at the Santa Fe Institute for 2019.

New books by SFI Authors, highlighted in the Winter 2018-2019 Parallax, inclue Introduction to the Theory of Complex Systems, The Model Thinker, Shadows of Doubt, Computational Matter, Viruses as Complex Adaptive Systems, and Pertussis.

A working group at the Santa Fe Institute recently convened to further ecological and evolutionary theory and craft an application for a National Science Foundation (NSF) “Rules of Life” grant.