Maths is not the first thing that springs to mind when you think about fighting crime. But a closer look reveals that it is behind many of the techniques that modern detectives rely on. Chris Budd investigates.

It's not that long ago that all you needed to run an airline was a few planes and some competent pilots. But now, with more of us zipping around the globe every year and the advent of no frills airlines, keeping an airline competitive has become a complicated business. Christine Currie explains how your airfare is calculated.

The maths of infinite series

Most of us are aware that Einstein proved that everything was relative ... or something like that. But we go no further, believing that we aren't clever enough to understand what he did. Hardeep Aiden sets out to persuade readers that they too can understand an idea as elegantly simple as it was original.

In the last issue Lewis Dartnell explained how chaos on the brain is not only unavoidable but also beneficial. Now he tells us why the same is true for our solar system and sends us on a journey that has been travelled by comets and spacecraft.

Physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies has made an unusual move into the infant discipline of astrobiology. He tells Plus about his interest in the big questions: what is life, how would we recognise aliens - and are they all around us?

Infinities are tricky things and have perplexed mathematicians and philosophers for thousands of years.