Dr. Cary Oberije, a postdoctoral researcher in The Netherlands, has found that mathematical models can be used to accurately predict patients’ responses to treatment. Prediction models were used to analyze lung cancer patients’ likelihood of survival and suffering from further complications. Currently, mathematical models are not widely used in medicine, but Dr. Oberije’s findings suggest…

A University of Rochester study shows that baboons are able to understand numbers. Experimenters showed the monkeys peanut-filled cups and the monkeys then chose which cup contained more peanuts. Read more about the experiment and its conclusions here.

Mathematician Bruce Bukiet of the New Jersey Institute of Technology has once a gain predicted a champion for the 2013 Major League Baseball season. Bukiet provides a mathematical analysis to compute the number of games each team should win during the regular season. In the past, Bukiet has correctly predicted the World Series champion and…

Software Engineers at SpaceX recently participated in a crowd-sourced interview on Reddit. One person asked, “What experience/schooling does one need to get a job with SpaceX?” SpaceX responded (in summary), “Study math and know your sorting algorithms.” Read more about SpaceX and their coding systems here.

In most math competitions, girls underperform relative to their male classmates. Brigham Young University economist Joe Price has shown that girls can perform as well as boys when the competition format is adjusted. With this new understanding, researchers can focus on helping girls perform better in competitive environments. Read more about the study here.