Cooking up statistics: The science and the art
Photo by Gaelle Marcel on UnsplashLetisha Smith – winner of the 2018 Award for Statistical…
Letisha SmithJanuary 14, 2019
March Madness, and why too much basketball knowledge can be harmful
The college basketball tournament bracket pool is a cultural phenomenon in the United States. Each…
Playing with risk
Imagine you hold three six-sided dice in your hand. Now throw them, and before they…
Brian TarranDecember 3, 2018
Toby Lewis at 100
On 19 October 2018, in a West London care home, Toby Lewis turned 100. Physically…
Harvey GoldsteinNovember 5, 2018
Still running against the odds: revisiting the London Marathon ballot
Monday 15 October had a lot of people eagerly awaiting the postman to deliver the…
Anthony HatswellOctober 29, 2018
Cargo-cult statistics and scientific crisis
Poor practice is catching up with science,1-3 manifesting in part in the failure of results…
Philip B. Stark and Andrea SaltelliJuly 5, 2018
Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics wins a last-minute reprieve
Plans to dismantle Puerto Rico’s Institute of Statistics (PRIS) have been altered at the 11th…
Brian TarranJuly 3, 2018
Greece’s former national statistician is heading back to court
Andreas Georgiou, Greece’s former national statistician, once again faces trial on charges of inflating the…
Brian TarranMay 16, 2018
Senators vote in favour of plan to scrap Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics
Puerto Rico's senators have approved a plan to dismantle the island's independent Institute of Statistics (PRIS).…
Brian TarranApril 9, 2018
Facebook data harvesting: what you need to know
Facebook makes most of its money from advertising, and – as the Cambridge Analytica scandal…
Gráinne Maedhbh Nic LochlainnApril 5, 2018
Enter our writing competition for early-career statisticians
Are you an early-career statistician with the ability to write data-driven stories in an entertaining…
Brian TarranMarch 20, 2018
Data, debt and disaster – and a fight for independence – in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico is in bad shape. Its government is burdened by a debt of $70…
Robert Langkjær-BainFebruary 2, 2018
Statistical analysis, Strictly on request
I don’t watch Strictly Come Dancing, the BBC’s hit reality dance show. I have seen…
Brian TarranDecember 11, 2017
Words in pictures: exploring repetition in song lyrics
It may not be immediately obvious, but the image to the left represents part of the…
Brian TarranNovember 6, 2017
So, were you surprised by the BBC/ONS crime risk calculator?
On 7 September this year, the BBC published a "crime risk calculator". A product of BBC…
Andromachi Tseloni and Ken PeaseNovember 1, 2017
A climate on the edge: Predicting environmental tipping points
In the coming century, we expect to witness dramatic changes to environments around the world:…
Ronan McAdamOctober 10, 2017
Plastic bag charge: Measuring success
In recent years, countries have passed legislation to charge shoppers for each new plastic bag…
Ronan McAdamOctober 10, 2017
Should we worry that half of Americans trust their gut to tell them what’s true?
Have you ever thought to yourself, “I’ll bet that’s true,” before you had all the…
R. Kelly GarrettOctober 2, 2017
Visualising regional data using the geofacet R package
Spatial data make an enormous contribution to our understanding of the world. They allow us to…
Stella Cangelosi, Luciana Dalla Valle and Julian StanderAugust 25, 2017
Trials of a statistician, continued
Just over a week ago now, on the morning of Monday 31 July, Andreas Georgiou stood up…
Brian TarranAugust 8, 2017
