More or Less
Episodes
Does it take 15,000 litres of water to produce a kilogram of beef?
02 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If you spend much time on social media, and we don’t necessarily recommend it, then you’ve probably come across a strange fascination with water c...
Have RFK and MAHA really changed American views on vaccines?
25 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Vaccine policy in the US is something of an ideological battleground. Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr is a vaccine sceptic, and since taking offi...
Is Trump right that wind turbines are killing millions of birds?
18 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
US president Donald Trump is no fan of wind turbines, or windmills as he calls them.Not only does he think they ruin the view from a golf course he ow...
Dr Spock’s dangerous advice on baby sleep
11 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes it is obvious to everyone when an idea is harmful, or a piece of advice is damaging. But not always. Occasionally bad ideas and terrible adv...
How likely is ‘likely’?
04 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When you’re listening to the news, you will often hear words that are meant to communicate the probability of something happening. A terrorist a...
How much water does AI consume?
28 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
As Artificial Intelligence continues to expand rapidly, some people have raised concerns about its potential environmental impact - in particular its ...
Paul Ehrlich: The man who bet England wouldn’t exist by the year 2000
21 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Ehrlich’s bestselling book The Population Bomb opens with an apocalyptic paragraph. “The battle to feed all of humanity is over,” it states...
Transgender women in sport: Does ‘comparable’ mean ‘equal’?
14 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In most sports, men compete against men and women compete against women. That is generally considered fair, because men are faster, more powerful and ...
US-Israel war with Iran: Do the gulf states have enough interceptor missiles?
07 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
On Saturday 28th February, the US and Israel launched a military attack on Iran, targeting the country's missile infrastructure, military sites and le...
Has a company really discovered a million new species?
28 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Have a million new species just been discovered?That’s the claim made by Dr Oliver Vince, co-founder of a company called Basecamp Research, who are ...
Did AI researchers let AI hallucinations into scientific papers?
21 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
AI can make mistakes – and AI chatbots like ChatGPT warn you about that whenever you ask them anything.These mistakes sometimes involve making up en...
Is an ancient charioteer the best paid sportsperson of all time?
17 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Modern sport can seem awash with money, but it’s been claimed that the richest sportsperson of all is an ancient Roman Charioteer from the second ce...
Is this Premier League striker a secret maths genius?
07 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Chelsea striker Liam Delap has recently stunned fans on Instagram by apparently doing incredibly complicated calculations in his head, finding what’...
Could Europe use its financial muscle to strong-arm the US?
31 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Could European Nato members use their large holdings of US shares and bonds to put pressure on America? It’s a question that some in Europe found t...
Can you get £71,000 on benefits?
28 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:Is it true that someone needs to earn £71,000 before they receive more money than...
Is Greenland as big as Africa?
24 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The vast island of Greenland has found itself at the centre of a geopolitical crisis. But a little bit of geography can help us see the situation in a...
How close is Greenland to the United States?
21 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week: How far away is Greenland from the United States? We check a number From Our Own ...
No, a study has not shown that the covid jab causes cancer
17 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Autumn 2025 a paper in South Korea was published that excited many a vaccine sceptic online. The paper claimed that receiving a vaccination against...
Have more than 100 private schools been forced to close because of VAT?
14 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week: A headline in the Mail says more than 100 private schools have closed since Labou...
Does Venezuela really have the biggest oil reserves in the world?
10 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When people think of oil rich nations their mind generally goes to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the US. But according to international statistics, the count...
The Stats of the Nation: Immigration, benefits and inequality
09 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a s...
The Stats of the Nation: Older people, education, prisons and the weather
08 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a s...
The Stats of the Nation: Sex, drugs and empty homes
07 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a s...
The Stats of the Nation: Health
06 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a s...
The Stats of the Nation: The Economy
05 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a s...
Numbers of the year 2026
03 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
From record-breaking passenger numbers, to some more record-breaking numbers - courtesy of the Men’s football World Cup. We look forward to what 202...
Numbers of the year 2025
31 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From the number of women in space and transistors on a chip to social media usage -we’re taking a look back the key numerical moments of 2025. We ex...
Numbers of the year 2025
27 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We look back at some stand out numbers of 2025. How significant were Trump’s import tariffs? China sets the pace for solar power installation across...
Were there really Three Wise Men?
24 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The surprising things we learn when we count everyone - a tour of the UK census through time. We also figure out just how many parking officers there ...
The shocking world of US health costs
20 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A loyal listener wrote in to question this claim made by neuroscientist Dr Daniel Levitin: "Here in the US valium in a pharmacy might be $3 that same ...
Do we really have ‘superflu’?
17 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The NHS is warning of an unprecedented flu season - we check what the numbers say.Is there really a mass exodus of Brits leaving the UK due to Labour ...
RCP 8.5: Why did the climate change model get it wrong?
13 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Whether we like it or not, global warming is happening. The global temperature has already gone up, and it’s going to go up more, because the atmosp...
Is RFK right about US sperm counts?
06 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Around the world, many countries are concerned about tackling the decline in birth rates and total fertility rates. The US is no exception. To ta...
Richard Thaler and The Winner’s Curse
29 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the later part of the 20th century, a pioneering group of economists started shaking up their academic field.These “behavioural economists” use...
Is there a stock market crash coming?
22 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For months, the share prices of tech companies have marched seemingly-ever upward, driven by fevered excitement about the potential of Artificial Inte...
Has there been a $50 trillion wealth transfer to the richest Americans?
15 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bernie Sanders says a vast amount of wealth - $50 trillion - has moved from 90% of the population to the wealthiest Americans since the 1970s. The fi...
Is RFK Jr right about China's diabetes rate?
08 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr is on a mission to make America healthy again. One of his health-promotion ideas is to reduce chronic i...
Halloween special: How many people did the real Dracula impale?
31 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Vlad III Dracula, the Wallachian Prince who became Bram Stokers inspiration behind his famous vampire 'Count Dracula,' was a brutal ruler. So brutal t...
Is your housework split sexist?
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Do you ever have fights with your partner about who does more of the housework and whether it’s fair? Well data might have the answer. Corinne Low ...
Nobel economics prize 2025: What's the big idea?
18 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt have been awarded this year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.The three are sharing 11 millio...
Are millions of people getting Motability cars for anxiety and ADHD?
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:The Conservative party conference has been told that millions of people are gettin...
Are 72% of prison inmates in Switzerland foreign?
11 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In a recent speech to the UN, US president Donald Trump set out some remarkable figures on the proportion of inmates in European prisons who were fore...
Does half the UK get more in benefits than they pay in tax?
08 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:The Daily Mail says that over half of the UK population live in households that ge...
Is the world getting less miserable?
04 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When you follow the news, particularly in countries like the UK and the US, it sometimes feels like people are less optimistic about their lives than ...
Has Donald Trump ended seven 'unendable' wars?
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:US President Donald Trump claims he has ended seven “unendable” wars. Is that ...
The Case of the Missing US Data
27 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In early February 2025, something strange started happening across US government websites. Decades of data began disappearing from webpages for agenci...
Was it easier to deport migrants to France before Brexit?
24 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey says it was easier to deport illegal migrants to Europ...
Is JD Vance right about left-wing violence?
20 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On September the 10th 2025, right-wing political activist and media personality Charlie Kirk was assassinated while speaking at an event in Utah. In t...
Is it true that out-of-work benefits have almost doubled?
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:Nigel Farage says 6.5 million people are on out-of-work benefits – with some ben...
Will the world really be 50 million workers short by 2030?
13 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says the world faces a severe labour shortage – 50 million workers by the end of the decade. The boss of the world’s most ...
Are Afghan nationals more likely to be convicted of sexual offences?
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Harford looks at some of the numbers in the news. This week:Is it true that interest payments on the UK’s national debt are equivalent to £240 ...
Do 11,000 sharks die every hour?
06 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hollywood has given sharks a terrible reputation. But in reality, the finned fish should be far more scared of us, than we of them.Millions of sharks ...
Are self-driving cars safer than cars with drivers?
30 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Fully autonomous cars are here. In a handful of cities across the US and China, robotaxis are transporting human passengers around town, but with no h...
Do women feel the cold more than men?
23 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Are office temperatures set too low in the summer for women to be comfortable? This idea has featured in news headlines and comedy videos which descri...
How weird was the Med Sea heatwave?
16 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In early July, the Mediterranean Sea experienced a marine heatwave. The surface of the water reached temperatures of 30 degrees in some places. A soc...
Why it matters that Trump fired data chief
09 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On Friday 1st August the US Bureau of Labor Statistics put out their job report data for August. It included revisions to their estimates for the jobs...
Are abortion numbers rising in the US?
06 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In June 2022 the United States Supreme Court passed what became known as ‘the Dobbs decision’. In doing so they overturned the long standing const...
Does a single AI query use a bottle of water?
06 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We’re living through boom-times for Artificial Intelligence, with more and more of us using AI assistants like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Grok and Copilot t...
Are one in six children living through war?
19 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the midst of the television coverage of Soccer Aid, a celebrity soccer match organised by Unicef, the audience was told that “one in six children...
Why Manchester United can afford to play badly
12 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Manchester United are terrible, even according to their own manager. Last season saw their worst ever performance in Premier League history.But at the...
Can drinking one less bottle of coke a day halve obesity?
09 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news and in life. This week:Is the secret to halving obesity rates really just a matter of cutting...
The economics of war: Vikings, Conquistadors and Vietnam
05 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How does economics help us understand conflicts through history? That’s the question that economist and journalist Duncan Weldon tries to answer in ...
Is the UK seeing a Christian revival?
02 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Harford looks at some of the numbers in the news and in life. This week:Is church-going making a comeback in the UK?Is it true that every day, 100...
Has Russia suffered a million casualties in the Ukraine war?
28 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been over three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the human toll is growing on both sides.Recently, politicians and jou...
Why is data on grooming gangs so bad?
25 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Harford looks at some of the numbers in the news and in life. In this episode:Why is the data on the ethnicity of grooming gangs of such poor qual...
How to spot a suspicious statistic
21 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Untruths sneak into our lives in all kinds of ways. Sometimes they’re outright lies. Blatant misinformation. But in this episode, we’re going to t...
Are 4% of young women in the UK on OnlyFans?
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news, and in life. This week:We debunk a false claim that the hotel bill for immigrants is the siz...
Could you be hit by a falling satellite?
14 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The number of satellites orbiting our planet has been rapidly increasing in recent years. But what are the risks when they start falling back down to ...
How do you make something 10-times more lethal?
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What does the government mean when it commits to developing a “10-times more lethal” army? Why was the much-missed Sycamore Gap tree said to be wo...
Is the world’s population being miscounted?
07 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Exactly how many people live on our planet is one of those difficult-to-answer questions. The UN estimates is 8.2 billion, but that’s largely based...
Does the average American have fewer than three friends?
04 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Harford is here to sprinkle a refreshing shower of statistical insight over the parched lawns of misinformation.This week, we try to unpick the co...
Factchecking the Trump administration’s Autism claims
31 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Picking Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a known vaccine sceptic, as the Secretary for Public Health might not be the most ‘out there’ thing the Trump admin...
Is the UN underestimating the global fall in fertility?
24 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Every two years, the UN release their predictions for the future population of humanity – currently expected to peak in the 2080s at around 10.3 bil...
How dead is the internet?
17 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 2020s, a conspiracy theory started circulating online known as the “dead internet theory”. This suggested that, instead of a vibrant ...
Warren Buffett’s brilliant bets
10 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Warren Buffett has announced he is stepping down as CEO of his company, Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett is one of the richest people in the world, and is ...
Bonus episode: The Autism Curve
05 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
An interruption to your regular podcast feed: the first episode of a new BBC Radio 4 series investigating the steep rise in autism diagnoses. The Auti...
Donald Trump: 100 days fact-check
03 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the 29th April US President Donald Trump took to the stage in Michigan to celebrate his first 100 days in office. This is a milestone in American p...
Are 80% of women really only attracted to 20% of men?
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Netflix’s psychological drama Adolescence has started a debate about teenage boys and misogyny in modern society. It tells the story of a seemingly ...
The pioneers of proof
19 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Here are More or Less we’ll all about the facts. Every day we use a toolkit of known proofs to try and answer our listeners’ questions. But who do...
How much is a human life worth?
12 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What is the cash value of a human life? That’s the question at the heart of The Price of Life, a book by journalist Jenny Kleeman. It turns out th...
The mistake in Trump’s tariff formula
09 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What is the error in the calculation Donald Trump used to work out his new tariffs?What happened when the government ordered a recount of bobbies on t...
Trump tariffs: All about the deficits
04 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
US President Donald Trump has announced sweeping tariffs on global trade, adding taxes of as much as 50% to imports from some countries. The tariffs,...
Is one in four people in the UK disabled?
02 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump is raising tariffs on Canada, but has his northern neighbour done anything to deserve them?In her Spring Statement, Chancellor Rachel Ree...
What’s Trump’s problem with Canada?
29 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours, and since the end of the Second World War that’s exactly what the US and Canada have been. They’ve en...
Could a 2% wealth tax raise £24bn?
26 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Some Labour politicians have been calling for a wealth tax, claiming a 2% tax could raise £24bn. Where are the numbers from and do they add up? A lis...
What are the chances of an asteroid hitting earth in 2032?
22 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On 27 December 2024, astronomers spotted an asteroid that was potentially heading towards earth. Named 2024 YR4, it was estimated to be between 40m ...
Why are more people claiming disability benefits?
19 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
More working age people are claiming disability benefits. What's driving the trend?Is it true that the UK imprisons more people for their social media...
How did lockdown impact children?
17 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In March 2020, the covid pandemic forced the UK into lockdown. Schools closed, universities went online and the economy shut down.It slowly became cle...
What is an IQ map and can we trust them?
15 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
You may have seen a map circulated on social media that claims to show the average IQ of different nations. If you look closely these numbers vary dra...
DOGE, apples and irregular migrants
12 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been 12 weeks since President Trump announced the formation of DOGE, the so-called department of Government efficiency. We fact-check various c...
Is there really $500bn of Rare Earths in Ukraine?
08 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As part of the fast-moving argument over US military support to Ukraine, the US demanded $500bn worth of access to what was variously reported as Ukra...
Defence Spending, Rare Earths and Trunk Truths
05 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Has the US really sent Ukraine $350 billion for its war effort? Is a $500billion cut of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals a good deal? How will the UK f...
Has the US really given Ukraine more aid than Europe?
01 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As negotiations to end the Ukraine war rumble on, Donald Trump seems equally interested in talking about the past, repeatedly claiming that the US has...
Are 150 year olds getting social security payments?
22 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last week Elon Musk revealed that he had been through the Social Security Agencies database and found millions of people aged over 100. The vast major...
Has the US sent $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza?
15 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the 25th January, the US Press Secretary announced that in their bid to stop ‘fraud’ and waste DOGE had cancelled $50 million worth of condoms ...
Are black babies in the US really more likely to die under the care of white doctors?
08 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Babies born in the US to Black Hispanic or African American mothers are more likely to die than any other ethnic group in America. That is a fact. But...
Are quantum computers already super-powerful?
01 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Google claim their latest quantum computer chip is able to process something in five minutes it would take a normal computer 10 septillion years to fi...
Did Trump make billions with his meme-coin?
25 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Just before being inaugurated as US president for the second time, Donald Trump launched something called a “meme-coin”. This is a bespoke crypt...
Can redheads handle 25% more pain than brunettes?
18 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What has the colour of your hair got to do with your capacity to withstand pain? We investigate the claim, which regularly circulates on social media,...
Do 79% of Swedish asylum seekers go on holiday to the country they fled from?
11 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The claim that 79% of asylum seekers in Sweden go on holiday in their home country has been repeated regularly on social media. It’s used to argue ...