Making each vote count

MIT PhD candidate Jacob Jaffe uses data science to identify and solve problems in election administration.

Leda Zimmerman | Department of Political Science • mit
Sept. 30, 2022 ~8 min

Beyond GDP: changing how we measure progress is key to tackling a world in crisis – three leading experts

Amid the global threats posed by climate change, spiralling energy costs, insecure employment and widening inequality, the need to rethink our notion of progress is now an urgent priority.

Tim Jackson, Professor of Sustainable Development and Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), University of Surrey • conversation
Aug. 18, 2022 ~34 min


Old age isn't a modern phenomenon – many people lived long enough to grow old in the olden days, too

Nasty, brutish – but not necessarily short. Here’s how archaeologists know plenty of people didn’t die young.

Sharon DeWitte, Professor of Anthropology, University of South Carolina • conversation
Aug. 10, 2022 ~8 min

Women are better at statistics than they think

Female statistics students had higher final exam grades than their male peers, even though they had less confidence in their statistics abilities at the start of the semester.

Kelly Rhea MacArthur, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Nebraska Omaha • conversation
July 28, 2022 ~5 min

The mathematics of human behaviour: how my new model can spot liars and counter disinformation

Mathematical model suggests information processing lies at the heart of decision making.

Dorje C Brody, Professor of Mathematics, University of Surrey • conversation
June 26, 2022 ~8 min

It's impossible to determine your personal COVID-19 risks and frustrating to try – but you can still take action

People want a simple answer. Is this action safe? But despite Anthony Fauci bouncing responsibility for COVID-19 risk assessment to individuals, your risk can’t be boiled down to one probability.

Malia Jones, Scientist in Health Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison • conversation
May 17, 2022 ~8 min

What words can convey

Natural language processing models capture rich knowledge of words’ meanings through statistics.

Jennifer Michalowski | McGovern Institute for Brain Research • mit
May 3, 2022 ~5 min

The 'hot hand' is a real basketball phenomenon – but only some players have the ability to go on these basket-making streaks

A study shows that a select group of NBA players really do go on hot streaks by making more shots in a row than statistics suggest they should.

Wayne Winston, Professor of Decision and Information Systems, Indiana University • conversation
March 22, 2022 ~8 min


Did male and female dinosaurs differ? A new statistical technique is helping answer the question

The lack of large numbers of fossils makes it hard to study sexual dimorphism in dinosaurs. But a new statistical approach offers insight into this question and others across science.

Evan Thomas Saitta, Postdoctoral Scholar in Paleontology, University of Chicago • conversation
Feb. 1, 2022 ~10 min

The results of European football matches are becoming more predictable – new research

We analysed data from almost 88,000 matches played over 26 years across 11 major European leagues. This is what we found.

Taha Yasseri, Associate Professor, School of Sociology; Geary Fellow, Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin • conversation
Dec. 17, 2021 ~7 min

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