Deep inside our cells, the DNA that encodes the mysteries of our individuality twines into tidy little spiral staircases neatly side by side — or so we might imagine. Consider, though, that if you scale up the nucleus of a cell to the size of a basketball, each molecule of DNA inside it would resemble fishing line more than four miles long. And now consider what happens to your iPod headphones when you cram them into a pocket: Invariably, it seems, they tangle. And they’re only a foot long! Now you have a picture of the gargantuan task your cells face in managing the ...

Mathematicians discover a Klein bottle hidden within the data underlying photographs

The work of Alexandre Grothendieck has transformed math the way the Internet has transformed communication: Once you’re used to it, you can’t imagine what life was like before it.

This year's Abel Prize goes to mathematicians involved in group theory.

Predicting a baseball player's future batting average (and many other things) is not as simple as relying on past performance, mathematicians say.

Theorists find the first example of an elusive complex function that just may help them solve the biggest problem in mathematics.

From Iraq to Sierra Leone to New Orleans, statistical tools help guide responses to human rights crises.

Beginning in the 17th century, the Japanese adorned temples with beautiful wooden tablets that depicted mathematical questions and theorems, apparently as offerings to the gods.

Music is an audible exploration of hyperdimensional geometries, according to new research.

Sophie Germain had a bold program to prove Fermat's Last Theorem, but it was doomed to fail.

The first female research mathematician had a program to solve Fermat's Last Theorem, and it was almost lost to history.

Visualizations of mathematics create remarkable artwork.

Mathematician nominated for award for restoring the only known recording of a live Woody Guthrie performance.