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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.

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Strings. Image credit: Johnny Settle (used under Creative Commons licence)

The Pointless Universe: the fascination of string theory

"[String theory] has led us in strange directions that we couldn't conceive of; it's revealed depths of mathematical structure that we couldn't have anticipated". Watch a video interview with Professor Michael Green, winner of the 2014 Fundamental Physics Prize.
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Why are we here?

David Sloan calculates how likely it is that our Universe exists. He explains to us how, and why the answer can help shape our theories of physics.
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Infinity or -1/12?

What do you get when you add up all the natural numbers 1+2+3+4+ ... ? Not -1/12! We explore a strange result that has been making the rounds recently.
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Living in the matrix?

There's no doubt that maths is very good at describing the world around us. Could this be because the Universe we live in is itself a mathematical structure? We talk to Max Tegmark.
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Head and brain made up of cogs

Computers, maths and minds

Most of us have a rough idea that computers are made up of complicated hardware and software. But perhaps few of us know that the concept of a computer was envisioned long before these machines became ubiquitous items in our homes, offices and even pockets.

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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?
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Picture perfect

In 2004 three physicists decided to dabble in a field they knew little about. Within weeks they had developed a new technique that transforms weeks' worth of computer calculations into something that could be done on a single page in an hour. It's used in particle accelerators such as the LHC at CERN.