Science News

Networks governing processes in nature and society are becoming increasingly amenable to modeling, forecast and control.

The world can deliver sudden and nasty shocks. Economies can crash, fisheries can collapse, and climates can pass tipping points.

The Internet is a belief system, a philosophy about the effectiveness of decentralized, bottom-up innovation. And it’s a philosophy that has begun to change how we think about creativity itself.

Aggarwal and Mazar discovered that people in more collectivist cultures – in which individuals see themselves as interdependent and as part of a larger society – are more likely to offer bribes than people from more individualistic cultures. Their work suggests that people in collectivist societies may feel less individually responsible for their actions, and therefore less guilty about offering a bribe.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Arguably the worst feature of societies with class structures – the disproportionate suffering of the poor – may have been the driving force behind the spread of those stratified societies across the globe at the expense of more...

Without selection between competing groups, the advantages of co-operation are not great enough to make it spread, or maintain itself within a population. Our benevolent instincts are the products of our social nature, and to analyse human society as essentially an association of individuals is not just morally but scientifically wrong, since that kind of analysis doesn't predict our behaviour accurately.

Slow Money is a market-based solution which seeks nothing less than to overhaul the way we relate to our world through money. "Instead of venture capital bankrolling far flung high tech start-ups, Tasch hopes to see 'nurture capital' funding local merchants and producers who, in turn, plug half of their profits back into their communities, ensuring one small local virtuous circle that values soil fertility, carrying capacity, a sense of place, care of the commons, diversity...and economic health as much as financial return."

Each generation benefits from the insights and discoveries of those who came before. “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants,” wrote Isaac Newton. In a new annual series, World Science Festival audiences are invited to stand on the shoulders of modern-day giants. When it comes to government support, big science isn’t just about particle colliders. Steven Weinberg, a professor of physics at the University of Texas, Austin, stresses that areas such as education, infrastructure, and healthcare are just as important for a society.

Growing up in a poor neighborhood significantly reduces the chances that a child will graduate from high school, according to a study published in the October issue of the American Sociological Review.