Danger on the slopes: how risky is skiing?
Skiing and snowboarding are the kind of sporting activities that can seem like one of…
Oz FlanaganJanuary 7, 2014
Statistics and languages: the power of n-grams
Up until the last few years, if you wanted to translate from one language to…
Bad reviews: the perils of modern peer reviews
Researchers need to publish as much as the Finnish need coffee. With the highest annual…
Carlos Alberto Gómez GrajalesDecember 23, 2013
Crowdsourcing a census on gun violence
Last Friday, a student shooting at Arapahoe High School left one classmate in a critical…
Stephanie KovalchikDecember 19, 2013
Every noise at once: using big data to explore new music
At The Echo Nest we collect pretty much every bit of data about music we…
Glenn McDonaldDecember 17, 2013
When terms and conditions apply
I overheard a conversation with a man representing a Silicon Valley company the other day.…
Cullen HobackDecember 9, 2013
The menace of daily life
This month marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of Alvan Feinstein’s paper ‘Scientific Standards…
Tom FanshaweDecember 5, 2013
How involved are disabled people in the modern economy?
Since today is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, I want to highlight some…
Dane KorverDecember 3, 2013
New cardiovascular disease risk calculator is too risky
Do you know your chance of developing cancer? diabetes? osteoperosis? If not, there is a…
Stephanie KovalchikNovember 29, 2013
How many Thanksgiving turkeys have received Presidential pardons?
It has been a source of comfort for many Americans at Thanksgiving that although they…
Oz FlanaganNovember 26, 2013
What’s behind the awesome rise of Twitter?
After Twitter was successfully floated on the New York Stock Exchange this November, its share…
Oz FlanaganNovember 18, 2013
DWTS voting system needs a makeover
On October 14, Christina Milian stood under the spotlight with the threat of elimination during…
Stephanie KovalchikNovember 14, 2013
The problem with African development statistics
Since the publication of Poor Numbers a healthy debate on the meaning of development statistics…
Morten JervenNovember 12, 2013
The physicist and the social scientist
Recently, I was let in on a fascinating email conversation that spontaneously began when two…
Oz FlanaganNovember 7, 2013
Seasonally adjusting time
During the First World War, countries on both sides introduced ‘daylight saving time’ (DST) in…
Michael MernaghNovember 1, 2013
The music that is better than itself
In the 1930s, Pitirim A. Sorokin and J.W. Boldyreff conducted the most interesting experiment1. They…
Mikhail SimkinOctober 28, 2013
From science to advice: reinventing the scientific generalist (part two)
Solly Zuckerman (pictured) was meticulous in measuring things to assemble evidence when there was none,…
Thomas KingOctober 17, 2013
From science to advice: Solly Zuckerman, bringing evidence into military strategy (part one)
The publications marking the transition to a new government chief scientific advisor in Britain give…
Thomas KingOctober 7, 2013
Bourbaki’s theorem: a hoax math lecture
A couple years ago I wrote about an experiment where researchers had hired an actor…
Mikhail SimkinOctober 1, 2013
Google wants to extend your life
Can statistics save your life? Well, Google certainly thinks it can. Moreover, the company has…
Carlos Alberto Gómez GrajalesSeptember 30, 2013
