I haven't written to the blog in a while -- time to get active again.
I found a GREAT article tonight in Nature Magazine, entitled Early Warning Signs for Critical Transitions. I just bought it and haven't fully read it yet, but it figures to be widely referenced.
It has one of the most fascinating topics I've seen in some time -- we're probably all familiar with Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Points -- but Gladwell gives NO INFORMATION (zero, zip, nada) about how to tell mathematically when a dynamic system is reaching that Magic Moment.
This article offers at least clues in that direction -- I'll have to read it to see how many. More on this to follow -- in the meantime you can see a bit more at Kedrosky and on Yahoo News