To make hard decisions, you need hard facts. Medical statistics can help us to decide what treatment to look for when we are ill, and to estimate our chances of recovery.

Mathematics makes a clean sweep in the Nobel Prizes.

Can mathematics help defend against another attack?

Over the past one hundred years, mathematics has been used to understand and predict the spread of diseases, relating important public-health questions to basic infection parameters. Matthew Keeling describes some of the mathematical developments that have improved our understanding and predictive ability.