One of the best-known manifestations of collective behavior is decision-making, whereby a group composed of many individuals (an insect colony, a swarm of bees, a population of fish) chooses among different available options. In a recent paper [1] we investigated a new paradigm of decision-making, o...

Many sub-Saharan African countries have failed to fulfil the Millenium Development Goals. But a closer look at the data and a comparison with a mathematical model, shows that these goals were unfair. In fact, many African countries have "over performed" in reducing child mortality over the last 25 yea...

Choosing where to go to lunch is never easy. For example, think about deciding which restaurant to go to from work. Imagine there are two choices, one is the friendly Central Perk and the other is the more idiosyncratic Monk's Cafe. But these restaurants are not reliable. The lunches vary in quality ...

Scientists are increasingly obsessed with their own impact and how to measure it. In some ways, this obsession has been forced on them, by the movement in the 1990s to using number of citations to measure impact. But, even without these external pressures to perform, tools like Google scholar make it ...

Scientific papers are the bread and butter of scientific discourse. Most papers reflect the final product of months, if not years or even decades, of effort. They are meant to be high-quality, well-thought-out, polished works. So when we say that we decided to try to write a paper in 24 hours, we can ...

Natural selection has shaped a whole range of different animal groups, from V-like formations of geese to circular mills of schooling fish. These shapes are the result of millions of years of evolution. Animals that hold their formation survive and those that don’t follow the group die out, either l...

The New York Times provided an estimate of"How Likely Is It That Birth Control Could Let You Down?" over a 10 year period. They estimate how many women will have at least one unplanned pregnancy in a ten year period depending on the type of contraception they use. For "typical" use, 86% of women usin...