News

How can science keep up in a world where catchy headlines and emotional soundbites dominate the public debate? In a recent interview, SynoSys Director Dirk Brockmann shares his take, and it’s both clear-eyed and hopeful.

We usually associate evolution with fierce competition: the strong overpower the weak, the fast outrun the slow, and only the best make it to the finish line. “Survival of the fittest” – that’s how the story goes.

Philipp Lorenz-Spreen’s powerful talk at re:publica 2025 explores the spiral of attention and platform power—and how we might break free.

© [AI] ChatGPT / MPG adapted from the press release The research team systematically replicated the methodology of the original study and used an updated dataset with studies up to March 2024.

A major milestone for us: We have been awarded €2.3 million in funding from the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) for the SynoSys.PC project, aimed at advancing the understanding of Long-COVID and advancing patient care.

On February 6, 2025, Professor Dirk Brockmann, head of our Center Synergy of Systems, delivered his university-wide inaugural lecture at TU Dresden, attracting over 100 attendees from various disciplines. Under the intriguing title “Doing Science Like a Fungus – Complexity Research in the 21st Century”, Dirk Brockmann provided fascinating insights into complex systems and the hidden rules that govern social and natural phenomena.

Has Elon Musk manipulated X to give the AfD more reach? He has made it clear in posts, articles and election events that he is a fan - and at the same time, Alice Weidel’s reach on X has increased significantly.

Community notes are supposed to curb disinformation on X - but they themselves follow political patterns. A new data analysis shows that Green Party posts are particularly criticised, but their notes are hardly considered helpful.

In this multi-author paper, spearheaded by Friederike Stock, and as part of the Junior Researcher Program with young researchers from 26 different countries and the project was supervised by Philipp Lorenz-Spreen.

Sami Nenno, Postdoc in the Junior Research Group Computational Social Science at SynoSys, Center Synergy of Systems, has co-authored an insightful new paper, All the (Fake) News That’s Fit to Share?