Santa Fe Institute

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[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

Scientists have been refining ways to model physical structures and systems, from bridges and space shuttles to forest fires and tumors. These “digital twins” mimic their real-world counterparts and evolve alongside them. 

In September, SFI’s working group on Digital Twins for Complex Systems brought together researchers in aerospace and structural engineering, disaster response, and applied mathematics to discuss recent breakthroughs and open challenges.

https://t.co/pb4b5wNCLh

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

Catch up on our most recent Community Lecture: "Neurotechnology & the Recovering Brain," in which John Krakauer explores neuroscience, recovery after brain injury, and the future of rehabilitation.

Watch here: https://t.co/Z8rRjLuaor

This was the final lecture of our 2026 series. If you missed any of this year's SFI Community Lectures, you can stream them anytime on our YouTube channel.

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

Mathematical proof dates back at least to Euclid in 300 BCE, and yet little is known about what happens in the mind when humans solve proofs. 

This week, an SFI working group co-organized by SFI External Professor Simon DeDeo (Carnegie Mellon University) brought together mathematicians, cognitive scientists, computer scientists, and philosophers to ask what it means to understand a proof. 

As DeDeo says, that question matters more now that machines are proving theorems “we used to consider to be at the absolute outer edge of human possibility.”

https://t.co/r5amDedU1C

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

Reserve your free tickets for SFI’s Community Lecture with John Krakauer, “Neurotechnology and the Recovering Brain,” on October 20, 7:30 pm at the Lensic Performing Arts Center.

It is increasingly appreciated that the damaged nervous system has residual latent capacity which, if harnessed, can restore function. In this lecture, SFI External Professor John Krakauer will discuss how it may be possible to unmask and express that capacity, using immersive environments, exer-gaming, smart devices, physiological stimulation, and psychedelics.

When: October 20, 2026 | 7:30 pm
Where: Lensic Performing Arts Center, Santa Fe, NM.
Free tickets: https://t.co/478J0KhWN8 or watch the live stream on SFI’s YouTube

Presented free to the public thanks to generous sponsorship by the McKinnon Family Foundation, with support from The Lensic Performing Arts Center and the Santa Fe Reporter.

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

In this SFI Seminar, Keith Hengen of Washington University in St. Louis explores the criticality hypothesis, which proposes that healthy brains operate near a tipping point that maximizes computational capacity. Drawing on experimental evidence, he examines how criticality shapes learning, development, sleep, and neurological disorders.

Watch Hengen's SFI seminar: https://t.co/IevBf79X4y

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

SFI President David Krakauer returns to StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson to explore the nature of intelligence, information theory, consciousness, and whether AI is actually intelligent at all.

https://t.co/yz7HaMtG7J

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

Final week to apply for the 2027 Santa Fe Institute Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships.

Only 7 days left! If you're an early-career scholar passionate about collaborative, transdisciplinary research beyond traditional departments, this fellowship is for you — submit your application now.

Deadline: September 30, 2026

Requirements & application: https://t.co/mMzUxKNgak

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

Blue Continuum, a new magazine from Nautilus founder John Steele, launched this week. Among its first stories is an essay from SFI President David Krakauer, “The Fossil Logic of the Industrial and AI Revolutions.”

In the essay, Krakauer looks at the parallels between our use of fossil fuels and the way AI draws from accumulated human knowledge.

Read the essay: https://t.co/xFr3YsSLpW

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

Applications for the 2027 Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships are open through September 30.

Marina Dubova just completed SFI's Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowship, and she reflects on what the experience meant to her. A cognitive scientist, Dubova shares what she found at SFI, and how the freedom to follow several big questions at once shaped her time here.

Deadline: September 30, 2026

Requirements & application: https://t.co/mMzUxKNgak

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

Through her writing, historian, author, and SFI Miller Scholar Andrea Wulf opens windows onto the science and philosophy of the 18th and 19th centuries.

In her new book, “The Traveler,” Wulf gives us George Forster, an explorer and naturalist who joined James Cook's expeditions to the Antarctic and the Pacific at age 17.  He sought to learn the language, beliefs, and practices of each society they met, including the Māori, Tahitians, and Tongans, and "observed with both his mind and his heart," writes Wulf, seeing dignity and universality among everyone he met. 

His views would be rare in any age, and were an especially brave departure from the imperial aims of Europe at the time. And despite a sad end, Wulf makes the arc of Forster's life glorious, writes SFI Professor Cris Moore in this review.

https://t.co/TyX7NaY44J

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

Direct your own research. Forge lifelong transdisciplinary connections. Apply for the 2027 Santa Fe Institute Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships.

Complexity Fellows contribute to SFI’s research and collaborate with leading researchers worldwide. If you recently completed your Ph.D. in any scientific discipline and are interested in transdisciplinary research, consider applying. SFI offers independent research opportunities and support to explore big questions across disciplines.

Deadline: September 30, 2026

Requirements & application: https://t.co/mMzUxKNgak

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

As American midterm elections quickly approach, conventional narratives no longer fully explain who votes how.

"The phenomena of Obama voters who switched to Trump in 2016, or the mayoral race in New York City, which was won by an underdog, demonstrate a deeply complexifying identity landscape that can lead to political upset," says SFI Resident Faculty member Brandon Ogbunu. He and SFI Research Fellow Andrew Stier mapped Stier's data on implicit racial bias in 140 American cities onto voting records and found patterns that didn't match conventional political wisdom: places with low racial bias that leaned conservative, and high racial bias that leaned progressive.

Those findings inspired a recent working group at SFI, a first step toward a theory of "Complex Political Identity." It convened experts from genetics, complex systems, psychology, anthropology, political science, and neuroscience to discuss how we think about groups and their members, how coalitional groups form, and how institutions and identities shape each other.

https://t.co/cVPz4NTZJ5

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

Catch up on SFI’s recent Community Lecture “The Indefinite Sublime: Tom McCarthy on Moby-Dick.”

In this lecture, McCarthy reflected on the richness and complexity of Melville’s novel, and on why Moby-Dick still invites new ways of reading and thinking.

Watch on SFI’s YouTube channel: https://t.co/D7drUHm81S

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

The Santa Fe Institute is hiring a postdoctoral fellow to work with SFI Professor David Wolpert on the thermodynamic cost of distributed computation, from digital circuits and neural networks to human brains.

We are seeking a scholar with expertise in physics, computer science, or related fields. Ideal candidates have a background in stochastic thermodynamics, statistical physics, or theoretical computer science, and strong programming skills. The position is in person in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Application: https://t.co/fghKOkrBDl

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

A random walk is a simple model of motion: each step goes in a randomly chosen direction. It's a useful approach to studying random motion, from molecules in a gas to stock-market fluctuations, and it usually assumes the walker is moving through surroundings that stay fixed.

Much of the world isn't like that. Molecules, cells, and microbes get where they're going by shoving other things aside, deforming the medium as they cross it. In a new paper in Physical Review Letters, SFI Professor Sidney Redner and colleagues propose a model in which the walker can push obstacles out of its way, and work out what a rearranged medium does to the walk.

https://t.co/CI6A1SDLcJ

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

While "optimism" isn't quite a taboo word in science, it is not a sentiment most scientists would use to describe their outlook. So much of the process of science is defined by failure, and successes are caricatured as intrepid scientists raging against a status quo machine.

In his new book, It Could Be Otherwise, neurobiologist and SFI Fractal Faculty Stuart Firestein proposes a subtly radical notion: that optimism, as much as conflict, has always been a character in the development of modern science, and that it should be named and clarified. Doing so, he argues, can lead to a more creative and integrative scientific endeavor, writes SFI Professor C. Brandon Ogbunu in this review.

https://t.co/2KxUllS7CN

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

Animals forage, immune cells patrol the body for pathogens, and algorithms trawl for optimal solutions to thorny problems. In natural and artificial systems alike, the act of searching is ubiquitous, says SFI Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow Aanjaneya Kumar. 

It's also complicated: searchers may die off or disappear, and new searchers can join the hunt. In a new paper in Physical Review Letters, Kumar and Samantha Linn, a mathematician at Imperial College London, describe how that shifting cast shapes the search, an influence that has until now remained largely unexplored.

https://t.co/1xP1kDexUp

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

Applications for the 2027 Santa Fe Institute Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships are open. Collaborate with researchers from around the world. Chart your own transdisciplinary path.

With a competitive salary, discretionary research and travel funds, and a generous benefits package including paid family leave, the fellowship offers early-career scholars the opportunity to become leaders in transdisciplinary research.

Deadline: September 30, 2026

Requirements & application: https://t.co/mMzUxKNgak

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

Influenza spreads faster in a crowded barracks or prison. Ebola proliferates when hospital beds run short. For decades, researchers have documented how social inequality shapes disease spread. In parallel, mathematical models have emerged for forecasting epidemics and weighing different public health interventions. But rarely have the two subfields of epidemiology joined forces.

A new paper in Biology Letters, led by SFI Resident Professor Brandon Ogbunu with SFI External Professor Sam Scarpino (Northeastern University) and collaborators, introduces a metric called "structural causal influence" that quantifies how factors like crowded housing, limited vaccine access, and financial barriers shape the way disease spreads, and whether public health interventions will actually work.

https://t.co/BYbm3rfbSA

[Santa Fe Institute @sfiscience]

In this seminar, SFI External Professor Holly Moeller (University of California, Santa Barbara) explores how organisms gain access to metabolism from other species through interactions ranging from mutualism to predation. 

Using examples including chloroplast-stealing marine microbes and tree-fungal mutualisms, she examines how acquired metabolism can drive niche expansion and evolutionary diversification.

Watch Moeller's SFI seminar: https://t.co/T0PzUWiV6o