Ask a statistician: Why can we not predict earthquakes?
Hundreds of people have been killed since the start of the year as a result…
Brian TarranAugust 25, 2016
Making maps
In an extract from her book, Big Data: Does Size Matter?, Timandra Harkness meets data-based…
Chilcot, part 2: How Tony Blair fumbled Iraq’s child mortality statistics
At a dramatic moment in Tony Blair’s testimony before the Iraq Inquiry back in 2010,…
Michael SpagatJuly 14, 2016
Chilcot on Iraq’s civilian casualties
The chapter on civilian casualties in the Chilcot report is stuffed with interesting material to…
Michael SpagatJuly 12, 2016
The EU referendum – one week to go: extracting insights from Facebook using R
A referendum is being held on 23 June to provide an answer to the question…
JulianJune 20, 2016
Is ‘you know who’ dead? Predicting the future in Game of Thrones
Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/umairadeeb/The narrative cliff-hanger is a fiendish device – ramping up drama and tension only…
Richard ValeApril 21, 2016
Revisiting the vaccine visualisations
Last year, the vaccination debate was all the rage again. “Pro-vaxxers” were loudly proclaiming that…
Randy OlsonMarch 9, 2016
Statistically speaking… How long can Pope Francis expect to live?
When elected pope of the Roman Catholic Church on 13 March 2013, the Argentinian priest…
Julian Stander, Luciana Dalla Valle and Mario Cortina BorjaFebruary 18, 2016
A game about correlations that’s more than just fun
If you haven’t played Guess The Correlation yet, you definitely should – but please read…
Brian TarranFebruary 9, 2016
Voodoo polls are bad news: here’s how to spot and stop them
"Over a third of students ‘no longer wish to study medicine’ amid the junior doctors’…
Robert FordJanuary 20, 2016
The 10 most-read articles of 2015
In a year that has seen Star Wars return to the big screen, it is…
Brian TarranDecember 23, 2015
What do we mean when we say ‘better data’?
Statistics play an important role in improving human lives, not least through helping to identify…
Maitha Al Junaibi and Karl Royce AshworthDecember 1, 2015
Paper cuts: Do ambient light levels influence criminal activities?
People often feel less safe when walking in the dark, for understandable reasons. It’s harder…
Brian TarranNovember 17, 2015
The joy of clustering
In April 2014, FiveThirtyEight published a statistical analysis of the paintings of Bob Ross. Journalist…
Samantha TynerNovember 11, 2015
Two years ago, the UN called for a ‘data revolution’. How far have we come?
An Ethiopian woman sells crops in a crowded market. Farmers can now receive regular updates…
Claire MelamedOctober 20, 2015
Angus Deaton: a statistician’s economist
Illustration: © Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of SciencesA few years ago, former World Bank…
Ian PrestonOctober 13, 2015
Politics is broken: The Guardian’s Alberto Nardelli on the fragmentation of party support
It’s almost the end of party conference season in the UK – a time in…
Brian TarranOctober 8, 2015
The stats in sport panel at RSS 2015: the bigger picture
In the absence of huge amounts of money, gaining a competitive edge in sport requires…
Oz FlanaganSeptember 30, 2015
How to communicate the uncertainty in economic statistics
Government statistical agencies often report official economic statistics as point estimates. Buried within the documents…
Charles ManskiSeptember 22, 2015
How do you measure disaster risk?
In September this year, the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will come to an end…
Julia HallAugust 25, 2015
