In New York offices where robots occasionally ply the hallways, dozens of PhD scientists with degrees in fields like astrophysics, immunology and linguistics huddle every day around computer screens that show billions of dollars zapping around the world.

Their goal: to give their secretive hedge fund firm a leg up in investing the $24 billion it has under management. Scientists at the firm, Two Sigma Investments, program its machines to cull torrents of information from sources like newswires, earnings reports, weather bulletins and Twitter.