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Krakauer: 2016 Is the Year of Conversations, Experiments, And March / April 2016 UPDATE IN THIS ISSUE INSIDE SFI > Food webs with humans 2 > Tomorrow’s power grid 3 > Modeling ancient peoples 3 Krakauer: 2016 is the year of conversations, > Social science weirdness 3 > A flaw in econ theory? 3 experiments, and partnerships at SFI > Introducing ACtioN 4 > Population regulation 4 > SFI President David Krakauer has launched Will Tracy new SFI VP 5 a number of initiatives intended to put > Disaster-resilient slums 6 the Institute’s intellectual thrusters into > Higher math for food webs 6 hyperdrive and amplify the impact of SFI’s > Farming insects 6 science. > Art & data dramatization 7 His vision comes in three parts: conversa- > New postdoc Kolchinsky 7 tions, experiments, and partnerships: “We’re > Perspectives on pertussis 8 going to have more, and more interesting, > Report to POTUS: Cities 8 conversations with a greater diversity of people. We’re going to try some exciting > Upcoming SFI events 8 new things that invite incredible opportu- nity…and skirt failure. And we’re going to partner. This is the year of partnerships at the Santa Fe Institute.” RESEARCH NEWS The new Strategic Partnerships group at SFI, which combines the previous functions of Bluebird’s Advancement and the former Business Network, is responsible for developing and conundrum: Shack maintaining all of the Institute’s high level partnerships. On March 1, Krakauer an- up now or hang nounced the selection of Will Tracy to lead the new unit as VP for Strategic Partnerships. out on mom’s (See article on page 5.) Photo by Minesh Bacrania > more on page 4 couch for a while For a young male western bluebird, it RESEARCH NEWS “Hard Modularity” by Joerael Elliott might be better to live with one’s parents as a helper for a year before starting a nest of one’s own, according to a recent The in!uence study in Behavioral Ecology. It’s a unique and somewhat counterintui- of modularity tive interplay of evolutionary tradeoffs that makes this kind of cooperative breeding on networks advantageous for species like bluebirds, says Caitlin Stern, an SFI Omidyar Fellow In large systems, from biology to politics, and lead author on the paper. like attracts like. Individuals in social sys- tems connect and form factions based on Female western bluebirds show an age common interests or behaviors, such as a bias, preferring to mate with older males. voting populous that divides by candidate. And bluebirds have high rates of extra-pair A biological model of malarial transmission paternity, or EPP, where a female’s social may divide its constituents into parasites mate may not be the father of all her (mosquitoes) and hosts (humans), with each offspring. This means a young partnered group playing fundamentally different roles. male often shares more genetic material with the younger siblings in his parents’ Understanding groupings, or “modules,” is nest than the young of his own nest. a key problem in network theory. Traditional clustering models assume many modules In addition, behavioral ecologists know will pop up in a large population. But that that helping behavior often results in approach is limited, says Laurent Hébert- longevity. By sharing the workload, each Dufresne, an SFI postdoctoral fellow. Recent individual in a cooperative system has a findings suggest that a small, finite number survival advantage. of tightly knit modules – those whose Young birds who stay at home as helpers components play by the same rules as the Barcelona), Jean-Gabriel Young (Université Hébert-Dufresne. “Do you look for people may increase both their parents’ and their system evolves – emerge in many systems, Laval in Québec), and Pierre-André Noël (UC like you, or different from you?” and this “hard modularity” can influence own lifespans, on average. For long-lived Davis), as well as evolutionary biologist Eric network processes. species like bluebirds, which can survive Libby, an SFI Omidyar Fellow. Scrawling on a whiteboard and on paper, eight years, males may thus increase their To better explore the impact of hard the network theorists thought through a reproductive fitness – the representation modularity on networks, Hébert-Dufresne Modularity is typically regarded as a struc- number of simple strategy games to test the of their alleles in the next generation – organized a five-day working group at SFI tural property of a network, but this group influence of hard modularity: for example, over their lifetimes by delaying breeding in January. His collaborators included three took a different approach. “We studied to win an election, how much effort should and helping instead. physicists, Antoine Allard (University of modularity instead as a strategy,” says > more on page 8 > more on page 7 SFI IN THE NEWS Deploying ideas and tools from complex- Bhattacharya, Cris Moore, D. Eric Smith, New Scientist on February 10 reviewed SFI and that a firm’s mortality rate is indepen- ity science could help economists foresee and Jon Wilkins – in which the research- External Professor John Miller’s new book, dent of its age, how well established it is, market interdependencies that cause ers used a new methodology to reveal that A Crude Look at the Whole. Slate reviewed or what it does. global market instabilities, wrote a group of for many universal concepts, the world’s the book on January 19. Articles in the New York Times’ Stuff We researchers in Science on February 18, in- languages feature a common structure Forbes on February 10 covered a paper by Like column and The Atlantic’s CityLab on cluding SFI External Professor Doyne Farmer of semantic relatedness. The CS Monitor SFI’s Hyejin Youn, Luís Bettencourt, José January 29 featured a study co-authored by and Science Board member Robert May. covered the paper on February 3. Lobo, Deborah Strumsky, and Geoffrey SFI Professor Luís Bettencourt and former Bloomberg on February 11 featured SFI SFI’s essay series with the CS Monitor con- West that examined the diversity, distribu- postdoctoral fellow Marcus Schläpfer that Board of Trustees Chair Emeritus Bill Miller tion, and patterns in the types of compa- finds universal patterns, and limits, in the tinued with “Beehives and voting booths” and his new investing algorithm, influenced nies that arise in cities of different sizes. heights of buildings in major cities. by SFI External Professor John Miller on by complex systems science and a com- February 11; “Why people become ter- puter model developed with SFI External The Wall Street Journal on January 29 ex- PBS Nova on January 13 and Wired on rorists” by SFI Professor Mirta Galesic on Professor John Rundle designed to predict plored the implications of a 2015 paper by January 4 quoted SFI Professor Luís Bet- January 21; and “Engineered societies: Can earthquakes and other natural disasters. Madeleine Daepp, Marcus Hamilton, Geof- tencourt in an article on the range of pos- science help orchestrate social outcomes?” frey West, and Luís Bettencourt revealing sibilities – utopian to dystopian – the urban Nature on February 11 highlighted a recent by SFI Professor Jessica Flack and External that a typical firm lasts about 10 years be- transportation networks of the future study – co-athored by Hyejin Youn, Tanmoy Professor Manfred Laubichler on January 7. fore it gets merged, acquired or liquidated, might realize. Q Nonlinearities From the editor RESEARCH NEWS Intellectual thrusters to hyperdrive! In March, nine science meetings take How hunter-gatherers preserved their food network place at SFI. The Applied Complexity Network (now known as ACtioN) is A new study of humans on Sanak Island, becomes scarce, its value goes up. In these those populations to extinction, you’re also announcing a host of new membership Alaska and their historical relationships with cases, such as with Bluefin tuna that are a introducing a destabilizing dynamic into the perks (see page 4) and holding a excit- local species suggests that despite being highly prized sushi fish, “increased rarity system.” ing meetings on topics like financial super-generalist predators, the food gather- increases economic value, leading to in- regulation and ecosystem dynamics ing behaviors of the local Aleut people were creased harvesting pressure at just the wrong The paper appeared February 17 in Nature (with a little population genetics for stabilizing for the ecosystem. time,” says Dunne. “You’re not only driving Scientific Reports. Q good measure). The Education office is gearing up for The findings provide insights into how hu- one crazy summer, with a global sus- man roles and behavior impact complex tainability summer school to augment ecological networks and offer new quantita- its already rich lineup of schools and tive tools for studying sustainability. residential programs, new online cours- es at ComplexityExplorer.org, and new With a team of ecologists and archeolo- short courses. Our community lecture gists, SFI’s Vice President for Science Jennifer series this year moved to The Lensic, an Dunne wanted to understand the niche auditorium of 800+ seats (twice the size humans filled in Sanak’s marine ecosystems of the previous venue) — and we’re still by compiling and analyzing local food web routinely near capacity. data. The Broken Symmetry Society was “It’s the first highly detailed ecological net- inaugurated in February, with Cormac work data to include humans, which allows McCarthy, James Drake, Joerael Elliott, us to ask questions about how they com- and a half dozen other creative types pare in their roles to other predators,” says in the house; read more about it in the Dunne. “Unlike most ecological studies that article that starts on page 1. ignore humans or consider them as exter- A new art exhibition just went up in nal actors, our analysis includes them as an our main building. It features paintings, integral part of the ecosystem.” a photocopied map and pages from a couple of short stories, and several For roughly 7,000 years, the Sanak Aleuts office doors with stenciled titles like hunted marine mammals and fishes in the “Seldom Little-Seldom” (a real town nearby open water and gathered shellfish in Newfoundland), “Museum of Dark and algae closer to shore.
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