Get on a commuter train these days and you can virtually see people's brains crunching away at filling the numbers from 1 to 9 into a square grid. As the Sudoku craze shows no sign of slowing, Hardeep Aiden investigates its relatives and predecessors.

Everyone knows what symmetry is, and the ability to spot it seems to be hard-wired into our brains. Mario Livio explains how not only shapes, but also laws of nature can be symmetrical, and how this aids our understanding of the universe.

6174 is a very mysterious number. Yutaka Nishiyama explains why, and how beautiful mathematical oddities can inspire us to discover new mathematics.

To arm or to disarm? This is the question in Phil Wilson's article, which explores the maths behind a cold war in slug world.

What is the cosmological constant?

A new Europe-wide science magazine

A crisis in cryptography?

The travels of bank notes give important clues to epidemiologists

Is geometry hard-wired into our brain?