MIT develops algorithms to "solve" non-linear systems as sum of squares
web.mit.edu
web.mit.edu
Favorite paper: minimal tetrahedralization of a convex polyhedron is NP-hard. http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/math/pdf/0012/0012177v1.pdf
http://www.math.ucdavis.edu/~deloera/RECENT_WORK/recent.html
http://www.cds.caltech.edu/sostools
http://www.mit.edu/~parrilo/sostools
The article could have mentioned that more people have worked on this. The whole thing started while Parrilo and Prajna were Prof. John Doyle's grad students at Caltech / CDS. Yet once again, MIT's shameless self-promotion fails to give credit where credit is due...
It isn't exactly scientific american.