News + Events

Scientists are getting better at prediction, but there’s good reason to believe we will eventually bump up against some fundamental limits. A recent workshop at SFI asked where those limits might be.

Whether it’s walking across hot coals or simply going to church on Sunday, people who participate in regular religious acts send a clear signal to others that they’re ready and willing to contribute to their communities, a new study suggests.

How do we recognize a face in a crowd? Experts are at SFI this month to explore how our brains process relevant information in a sea of noise.

Most US drivers could perform their daily personal vehicle trips with an electric vehicle, according to a new model by SFI External Professor Jessika Trancik and colleagues.

A unique meeting at SFI in July brought together experts from fields as diverse as physics, neuroscience, sports, and dance to ask whether there are limits to human performance.

SFI External Professor Jim Hartle has been named a member of the American Philosophical Society.

Jerry Sabloff has been selected by the American Anthropological Association to receive its 2016 Alfred Vincent Kidder Award for Eminence in the Field of American Archaeology.

Crop prevalence adds to the evidence that Madagascar and the Comoros Islands were colonized by people from South Asian Islands rather than from Africa, a new paper suggests.

In an SFI Community Lecture May 31 in Santa Fe, artist and author Lynda Barry explores what makes us want to write, draw, sing, and dance.

SFI has maintained the highest possible rating under the independent charity evaluator Charity Navigator's new rating system.

This week the president awarded SFI's Simon Levin the U.S. National Medal of Science—the nation’s highest honor for achievement and leadership in science. 

In an evening ceremony last week at SFI, the Institute recognized teacher Natalie Martino and 13 Santa Fe-area high school seniors for scientific excellence.

On April 12, Carlos Castillo-Chavez unraveled the complex factors that fuel the spread of deadly diseases, and how we can use our knowledge of them to prevent future outbreaks. Watch the video here.

In a test of the limits of scientific collaboration, 15 postdocs holed up in a home in the New Mexico foothills recently for three days and nights of intense scientific research. Their goal: produce a novel research paper in just 72 hours.

 In Quantitative Finance, SFI External Professor Stefan Thurner and colleagues suggest that a tax on interbank loans scaled to the risk each transaction adds to the system would more effectively limit financial systemic risk than proposed "one size fits all" risk taxes.

Humans aren't the only species that farms; leafcutter ants, termites, and some beetles grow their own food. A working group met recently at SFI to explore the evolution of agriculture in insects and humans.

A collaboration of international researchers, including four SFI scientists, has been awarded $8 million to extend our understanding of evolution.

Upper and lower bounds on the sizes of bacteria and the physiological tradeoffs that constrain these size limits are explored in a new paper co-authored by SFI Omidyar Fellow Chris Kempes.

Harold Morowitz, a leading figure in shaping the scientific and popular understanding of the chemical origins of life on Earth, passed away March 22 in Fairfax, Va.

Whooping cough is on the rise in the US, and the adoption of a new vaccine in the 1990s is part of the explanation. Two former SFI Omidyar Fellows propose a hybrid vaccination protocol they say could slash cases by 95 percent.