Paddington Bear, the endearing ursine adventurer with a penchant for marmalade, turned fifty today!
Paddington is close to our hearts for the simple reason that he took his name from the very station in which our UK offices are based.
New Scientist puzzle-setter Rob Eastaway is featured on the NCETM website in a three-part essay on ‘joined-up mathematics’, the first two instalments of which are online.
Eastaway’s essay is required, and fun, reading for anyone following the directions that maths and science education are taking, with the emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths (STEM) and the sometimes forced emphasis on making maths relevant.
If ever a person needed proof that maths has its uses outside the classroom and the engineering lab, they might find it here. A cunning addition to Google Mail is designed to prevent tired and emotional emailers from sending messages they may later regret.
Bees might be rather good mathematicians. It seems bees could have a finely-tuned ability to calculate averages. The famous ‘waggle dance’ is a shimmy that bees returning to the hive perform for their fellow workers, a communication tool that helps guide others to the best flowers.
Solve any one of “The World’s 23 toughest maths questions” and you’ll be the toast of the science world, and the darling of US military research.
DARPA, US military’s boffin-central, has put out a call for solutions to some of the most intractable scientific issues of our day. DARPA (which, incidentially, founded the military forerunner of the Internet, ARPANET) hopes this challenge will have the effect of:
“dramatically revolutionizing mathematics and thereby strengthening DoD’s [Department of Defense's] scientific and technological capabilities.”
A Learning and Teaching Scotland report has shown regular use of Nintendo brain-training games improves test scores.
This is, of course, great news for Nintendo, exciting news for primary school kids everywhere, and good news for us, too.
Scottish students with their daily dose of brain-training
Marcus du Sautoy is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wadham College, 
author of Finding Moonshine and The Music of the Primes. Having presented Mindgames and The Music of the Primes on BBC television. He writes for the Guardian, Daily Telegraph and The Times and is frequently asked for comment on BBC radio and television. In 2006 he was the Royal Institution Christmas Lecturer.
We get a lot of questions from home-schooling parents. And many parents whose children attend school nevertheless want to know how Maths-Whizz can provide a bit of extra stimulation - extension for advanced students, or support for those who are struggling.
Here follows some tips from the, er, finest minds of Maths-Whizz and some thoughts from a home-schooling mum.
For those of us in the northern Hemisphere the Autumn Equinox is just behind us, and our hugely successful Summer Adventure is coming to an end.
“Boo”, I hear you say. But what better opportunity to look back at the methods that made the central American Mayans (in whose wild forests the Professor’s Summer Adventure is set) such pioneers of maths?
Arithmetic - the genius way. Three top-level maths brains duke it out with just a blackboard and chalk.
Enjoy!
