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"[Good ideas] come from crowds, they come from networks. You know we have this clichéd idea of the lone genius having the eureka moment. Slow hunch: John Snow, who discovered how cholera was spread, had no 'Eureka' moment "But in fact when you go back and you look at the history of innovation it turns out that so often there is this quiet collaborative process that goes on, either in people building on other peoples' ideas, but also in borrowing ideas, or tools or approaches to problems. "The ultimate idea comes from this remixing of various different components. There still are smart people and there still are people that have moments where they see the world differently in a flash. "But for the most part it's a slower and more networked process than we give them credit for."

Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren't sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer - that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others - is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.

It's time to review the new set of skills people of all ages require to succeed.

We live in a complex world with diverse people, firms, and governments whose behaviors aggregate to produce novel, unexpected phenomena. We see political uprisings, market crashes, and a never ending array of social trends. How do we make sense of it?

The Ri Channel is a new online project by the Royal Institution showcasing the very best science videos from the Ri and around the web. Alongside highlights from recent Ri events, the Channel features re-digitised footage from the Ri archive and a range of high-quality videos from filmmakers and scientific institutions across the UK and beyond. The project continues the Royal Institution's charitable mission to "connect people to the world of science".

"José Urbina López Primary School sits next to a dump just across the US border in Mexico. The school serves residents of Matamoros, a dusty, sunbaked city of 489,000 that is a flash point in the war on drugs. There are regular shoot-outs, and it's not uncommon for locals to find bodies scattered in the street in the morning. To get to the school, students walk along a white dirt road that parallels a fetid canal. On a recent morning there was a 1940s-era tractor, a decaying boat in a ditch, and a herd of goats nibbling gray strands of grass. A cinder-block barrier separates the school from a wasteland-the far end of which is a mound of trash that grew so big, it was finally closed down. On most days, a rotten smell drifts through the cement-walled classrooms. Some people here call the school un lugar de castigo-"a place of punishment.""

"It appears that the effect of physical temperature is not just on how we see others, it affects our own behavior as well," Dr. Bargh said. "Physical warmth can make us see others as warmer people, but also cause us to be warmer - more generous and trusting - as well."

Social media is an important technological trend that has big implications for how researchers (and people in general) communicate and collaborate. Researchers have a huge amount to gain from engaging with social media in various aspects of their work.

Visualizing.org is a community of creative people working to make sense of complex issues through data and design… and it's a shared space and free resource to help you achieve this goal.

"So.cl (pronounced "social") is an experimental research project, developed by Microsoft's FUSE Labs, focused on exploring the possibilities of social search for the purpose of learning. So.cl combines social networking and search, to help people find and share interesting web pages in the way students do when they work together. So.cl helps you create rich posts, by assembling montages of visual web content. To encourage interaction and collaboration, So.cl provides rich media sharing, and real time sharing of videos via "video parties.""