Content about “
medicine and health
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Article

Blood, oil and water

Sara Zahedi has won a prestigious prize at the European Congress of Maths. Your future medical diagnoses, and even the welfare of sea life, may depend on her work.
Article

Eight great reasons to do maths

In 2012 the UK government launched a list of the Eight Great technologies of the future. Here's what they are and what role maths has to play in them.
News story

23 and maths

The company 23andMe made headlines by launching its DNA testing service in the UK. But how are the risks of developing a disease calculated?
Article
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Sending flu packaging

How are researchers in disease dynamics using mathematics to understand how the influenza virus replicates? This short, accessible article investigates.

Article

How do we hallucinate?

Geometric hallucinations are very common: people get them after taking drugs, following sensory deprivation, or even after rubbing their eyes. What can they tell us about how our brain works?
News story

Disease moves like ripples on a pond

Modelling the spread of disease is a difficult business. Epidemiologists use incredibly complex models involving huge amounts of transport, social contact and disease data to predict the spread of diseases. But is there a way to hide all this complexity and draw a simpler picture of how diseases spread, even in today's complex world?
Article
moon

Understanding the unseen

When NASA first decided to put a man on the Moon they had a problem: once the Apollo spacecraft was in flight, they would not be able to observe its exact location and neither would they be able to predict it using physics. How could they send astronauts to the Moon if they didn't know where they were? An ingenious mathematician came up with an answer.
Article
Horse head

Walk, trot, gallop

Horses, like all animals, have a number of different gaits. But how can they perform these complicated leg movements without having to stop and think? And why do they switch to a new gait when they want to go faster? Mathematics can shed some light on these questions.

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