Using Math to Cure Diabetes

Over 28 Million Americans live with Type 2 Diabetes. Type 2 Diabetes occurs when someone’s pancreatic cells don’t create insulin, and cause dangerously high blood sugar. It may seem like a problem solvable only by health professionals, but as is typical of Mathematicians, Professor Richard Bertram from Florida State University and his colleagues are solving the problem from a new perspective—with math.

Learn how research from this mathematics professor has applied math to successfully revive oscillations in insulin-producing pancreatic cells at Science Daily (click here).

 

(https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161129143424.htm)

Premature births lead to lower mathematical ability

In studies done on babies that were born prematurely, it was found that as children, they struggled mathematically. This can lead to financial problems in adulthood because of decreased numerical abilities that create difficulty when making personal financial decisions.  What can be done to help these premature babies as they reach adolescence to better prepare them for the future? Read more here.

Mathematical Model for Directional Hearing in Animals

Being able to locate the source of sound is a skill that humans employ based on the difference in the amount of time the sound waves take to reach each ear.  For smaller birds, reptiles and mammals, the distance between the ears is too small to base sound location off of the same strategy.  Mathematicians from the Technical University of Munich have used a model to show how these animals compensate for this. Read more about this here.

A New Wave in Math

The first equation to successfully represent waves was made in the 1700s. Now, hundreds of years later, new research has surfaced on the topic. One question that researchers Biondini and Mantzavino attempt to answer in their new paper is, “what happens when a wave has small imperfections at its origin?” Read more about this new wave of mathematical research here!