news

Mathematics - 19.09.2023

Machine learning models can produce reliable results even with limited training data
Researchers have determined how to build reliable machine learning models that can understand complex equations in real-world situations while using far less training data than is normally expected.

Mathematics - Health - 05.04.2023

Want satisfaction? Do the maths
For the first time, a mathematical model for reaching sexual climax has been successfully calculated. 'Don't overthink it' finds the research, which could be used to improve treatment of some conditions. The mathematical model focuses on male arousal, with a formula for female climax to follow. University of Sussex mathematicians have developed the first ever mathematical model of how to reach sexual climax, as revealed in a new paper.

Mathematics - 22.03.2023

New RVC research explains human foot and leg proportions
Novel research from the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) examining the human walk has been able to predict leg and foot proportions using collisional geometry. The findings suggest why modern humans have a knee halfway down their legs, short heel and toes, a stiff, longer midfoot, and why a comfortable step is two to three feet long.

Mathematics - 02.02.2023

New maths research to improve disease diagnosis and cybersecurity
A new programme aims to extract useful information from huge, complex datasets. Bath mathematicians will be building models to identify big dataset anomalies. A new UK-wide research programme that aims to extract useful information from huge, complex datasets has been launched. As part of the programme, mathematicians from the University of Bath will be developing tools to identify dataset anomalies that point to serious problems that might otherwise go undetected.

Mathematics - 06.01.2023

Researchers derive an equation to describe how stones skim across water
A new mathematical model that predicts how a tossed stone will skim across the surface of water has potential applications in aircraft design, finds a study involving UCL researchers. The mathematical model, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A , factors together the possible shapes and weights of a stone, the different speeds and directions of a throw and the momentum and pressure of the water as the stone impacts.

Physics - Mathematics - 28.07.2022

Secure cryptography with real-world devices is now a realistic possibility
New research published in Nature explains how an international team of researchers have, for the first time, experimentally implemented a type of quantum cryptography considered to be the 'ultimate', 'bug-proof' means of communication.

Mathematics - 01.12.2021

Machine learning helps mathematicians make new connections
For the first time, mathematicians have partnered with artificial intelligence to suggest and prove new mathematical theorems. The work was done in a collaboration between the University of Oxford, the University of Sydney in Australia and DeepMind, Google's artificial intelligence sister company. While computers have long been used to generate data for mathematicians, the task of identifying interesting patterns has relied mainly on the intuition of the mathematicians themselves.

Mathematics - 24.02.2021

Solving a 100 year-old maths puzzle
For 100 years mathematicians have been trying to solve the question of whether it is possible to fit all four points of a rectangle into any given closed curve shape. Or, more bluntly, can you fit a square peg into a round hole? Research so far had found that it was only possible to fit the proverbial square peg into a round hole if the peg in question was of certain proportions, until now.

Mathematics - Physics - 08.02.2021

’Multiplying’ light could be key to ultra-powerful optical computers
New type of optical computing could solve highly complex problems that are out of reach for even the most powerful supercomputers. An important class of challenging computational problems, with applications in graph theory, neural networks, artificial intelligence and error-correcting codes can be solved by multiplying light signals, according to researchers from the University of Cambridge and Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Russia.

Computer Science - Mathematics - 27.01.2021

A sunny outlook for speedier weather forecasts
Official weather forecasts are being produced faster and more efficiently, thanks to revolutionary technology designed by scientists at the University of Bath. Last updated on Friday 5 February 2021 Official weather forecasts are being produced faster and more efficiently, thanks to revolutionary technology designed by scientists at the University of Bath.

Life Sciences - Mathematics - 13.01.2021

Mathematics explains how giant ’whirlpools’ form in developing egg cells
The swirling currents occur when the rodlike structures that extend inward from the cells' membranes bend in tandem, like stalks of wheat caught in a strong breeze, according to a study from the University of Cambridge and the Flatiron Institute. The mechanism of the swirling instability is disarmingly simple, and the agreement between our calculations and experimental observations supports the idea that this is indeed the process at work in fruit fly egg cells Raymond Goldstein Egg cells are among the largest cells in the animal kingdom.

Physics - Mathematics - 18.12.2020

UofG researchers set out for New Horizons
Researchers from the University of Glasgow's College of Science & Engineering are sharing in new funding for adventurous, high-risk research. Four projects from three Schools have received support from the £25.5m New Horizons fund, administered by the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC).

Pedagogy - Mathematics - 27.11.2020

Storybooks could help children’s maths
Tutoring programmes and storybooks can help improve children's attainment in maths, according to a new evidence review led by UCL researchers. The evidence review, published today by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and written by a team from the UCL Institute of Education, the University of Brighton, Loughborough University and Ulster University, synthesises the best international evidence about the teaching and learning mathematics for children in Early Years and Key Stage 1 (between the ages of 3 and 7).

Mathematics - Health - 07.10.2020

Faster COVID-19 testing with simple algebraic equations
A mathematician from Cardiff University has developed a new method for processing large volumes of COVID-19 tests which he believes could lead to significantly more tests being performed at once and results being returned much quicker. Dr Usama Kadri, from the University's School of Mathematics, believes the new technique could allow many more patients to be tested using the same amount of tests tubes and with a lower possibility of false negatives occurring.

Health - Mathematics - 20.08.2020

Working from home is more effective than keeping kids off school in tackling Covid - new study
Closing schools and shielding the over 60s has less of an effect in reducing Covid-19 transmissions and death rates than reducing workplace interactions A 30% reduction in workplace interactions is forecasted to result in a 62% reduction in new infections and a 54% reduction in new deaths by the end of 2020 compared with no additional interventions Enabling employees to work from home is more effective than keeping children off school, or shielding the over 60s in reducing new Covid infections, new deaths and total deaths.

Physics - Mathematics - 29.07.2020

’Quantum negativity’ can power ultra-precise measurements
Scientists have found that a physical property called 'quantum negativity' can be used to take more precise measurements of everything from molecular distances to gravitational waves. We've shown that filtering quantum particles can condense the information of a million particles into one David Arvidsson-Shukur The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, Harvard and MIT, have shown that quantum particles can carry an unlimited amount of information about things they have interacted with.

Mathematics - Health - 09.07.2020

Doing more with less: Sperm without a fully active tail move faster and more efficiently, new UK study finds
Sperm cells moving their long tail to swim through the body in search of an egg is a familiar image, but a fully 'powered' tail may not be the key to success, according to a new UK study which could be crucial for improving the outcomes of assisted fertility treatments. Propulsion of sperm and how the cell uses its tail to move through the thick fluids of the reproductive tract to reach and fertilise an egg has been well studied.

Mathematics - Economics - 03.07.2020

New mathematical principle used to prevent AI from making unethical decisions
A new mathematical principle has been designed to combat AI bias towards making unethical and costly commercial choices. Researchers from the University of Warwick, Imperial College London, EPFL (Lausanne) and Sciteb Ltd have found a mathematical means of helping regulators and businesses manage artificial intelligence (AI) systems' biases towards making unethical, and potentially very costly and damaging, commercial choices.

Life Sciences - Mathematics - 03.07.2020

Analysis: How the brain builds a sense of self from the people around us - new research
MBPhD researcher Sam Ereira (UCL Medical School) shares his research on brains and discusses how we distinguish between thinking about our minds versus those of others. We are highly sensitive to people around us. As infants, we observe our parents and teachers, and from them we learn how to walk, talk, read - and use smartphones.

Health - Mathematics - 22.06.2020

United States COVID-19 model passes Codecheck
The software behind a major Imperial study warning of a potential US coronavirus resurgence has received a Codecheck endorsement. The key findings in the 'Report 23' from Imperial College were reproducible. Dr Stephen Eglen University of Cambridge The independent review of the Imperial COVID-19 Response Team's code for Report 23 was led by Dr Stephen Eglen, Reader in Computational Neuroscience in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge.