Angela Saini

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229 appearances 5 recordings 1 series first heard Jan 2012 last heard Jul 2012

Angela Saini’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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More or Less · Hit movies and killer birthdays (WS) · 29 Jun 2012 podcast

Well, let's see if it turns out to be as much of a classic as Gone With The Wind.

And let's not forget, it could catch up.

Gone With The Wind has been around for a lot longer.

Thanks, Charlotte.

Now on to birthdays.

If you are listening to this on your birthday, pay attention.

According to a Swiss study, you're 14% more likely to die today than on any other day of the year.

This killer birthday phenomenon has generated quite a bit of media attention.

But how seriously should we take it?

We asked a true statistical superhero, the British statistician Professor David Spiegelhalter, to go over the numbers for us.

David Spiegelhalter.

I put his critique to Dr Vladeta Ajacic-Gross from the University of Zurich.

He's the Birthday Study's lead researcher.

And he agreed that administrative errors could have been to blame for some of the huge spike in deaths on birthdays.

Crunching their data a different way, they found that the increased risk of dying on your birthday might actually be as low as 4%, not 14%.

But, he says, this is still a significant result.

That's all for this week.

If you're missing us already, go to bbcworldservice.com slash more or less, where you can hear old episodes.

If you see a number you'd like us to investigate, write to more or less at bbc.co.uk.

We read 100% of the emails we receive.

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