More or Less

WS More or Less: Women, the Oscars and the Bechdel Test

05 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Are Hollywood films ignoring women? As this is the 90th year of the Academy Awards - we find out how many ‘Best Picture’ winners pass the Bechdel ...

WS More or Less: The Winter Olympics

25 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What’s the most successful nation? (0’40”) We look at population, GDP per capita and ski areas of the countries with the most medals.How do you ...

WS More or Less: Debunking guide – on a postcard

18 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

How to question dubious statistics in just a few short steps.

UN rape claims, Stalin and Mr Darcy

16 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

How many people have UN staff raped? – (0’40’’) It was reported in a number of the newspapers this week that UN staff are responsible for 60,0...

WS More or Less: Has Russian Drinking Fallen by 80% in five years?

11 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Alcohol consumption has fallen sharply according to Russia’s health ministry

The Dow, Tampons, Parkrun part II

09 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Why the biggest ever fall in the Dow wasn't, and how much do women spend on tampons?

WS More or Less: Is China On Track to End Poverty by 2020?

05 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

A key pledge of the Chinese President Xi Jinping is that China will have eradicated poverty by 2020. It’s an extraordinary claim, but the country do...

Transgender Numbers, Parkrun and Snooker

02 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

How many transgender people are there in the UK?The UK produces official statistics about all sorts of things – from economic indicators to demograp...

Is the US Census Under Threat?

29 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The survey question that could affect the accuracy of its results.The United States are due to run their next nationwide census in 2020, but already c...

A Girl's First Time, Shark's Stomachs, Prime numbers

26 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

First sexual experience - checking the facts A short film for the Draw A Line campaign has made the claim that one in three girls first sexual experie...

WS More or Less: Real Lives Behind the Numbers

22 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

If you ask an economist to explain what is happening in a country’s economy. They rely on economic data points to describe what is happening – the...

Gender Pay Gaps and How to Learn a Language

19 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Gender Pay Gap This week the Office for National Statistics has published analysis trying to find out why it is that on average women are paid less th...

WS More or Less: How Louis Bachelier Scooped Economists by Half a Century

15 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

A forgotten French mathematician is the focus of our programme. He anticipated both Einstein's theories and the application of maths to the stock mark...

Missed appointments, graduate pay, plus cocaine on bank notes

12 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Did missed appointments cost the NHS £1 billion last year? New figures published recently suggest that the financial cost to the NHS for missed appoi...

WS More or Less: Just how rare is a hole-in-one?

07 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Why it isn’t as simple to work out as you think.

More or Less: Statistics of the Year 2017

31 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Phones, lawn mowers and how Kim Kardashian helped the public understanding of risk.

WS More or Less: Will Bitcoin use more electricity than the United States?

24 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Measuring the energy used to keep the cryptocurrency secure.

WS More or Less: Diet Coke Habit; 'Contained' Wildfires

18 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Could the US President’s Diet Coke habit affect his health? and 'contained' wildfires

WS More or Less: Does Eating Chocolate Make Your Brain Younger?

11 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Headlines claim that eating chocolate can protect you from developing Alzheimer’s disease. The theory is that bioactives within chocolate called fla...

WS More or Less: Just how lucky are regular lottery winners?

04 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Are some people just very lucky? The maths suggest that is unlikely.

WS More or Less: How Rich was Jane Austen’s Mr Darcy?

26 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

What the Pride and Prejudice character would have earned in today’s money.

How expensive is Italy's World Cup failure?

17 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The Italians are calling it the apocalypse. Their team has failed to make it to the World Cup for the first time in 60 years. But it is about more tha...

WS More or Less: Why Albums are Getting Longer

12 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Chris Brown’s latest album is stuffed with so many songs it runs at a sprawling two hours and twenty minutes. It’s only the latest in a string of ...

WS More or Less: Do Nigerian lawmakers get $1.7m and do Yams cause twins?

05 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Finding out if Nigerian politicians really get paid more than the American President.

WS More or Less: Novelists in numbers

30 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Counting the favourite words of well-known authors: Stephen King, Hemingway and others

WS More or Less: Are US millennials more politically engaged online?

20 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Did the 2016 US election galvanise young people to become more engaged in politics?

How Richard Thaler changed Economics

13 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The behavioural economist who has inspired governments around the world.

WS More or Less: Kilobyte to Brontobyte

10 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Naming the monster numbers - how the names of digital storage files evolved.

WS More or Less: Big polluters - ships versus cars

02 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Do the largest ships emit as much pollution as all the cars in the world?

Uber; EU passports; counting domestic violence

29 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Is Uber safe? The post Brexit dual nationality surge and measuring partner abuse.

WS More or Less: Sperm - Are we going extinct?

25 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

How much of a problem is falling sperm count?

Statistics abuse, tuition fees and beer in 1887

22 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is accused of mis-using official statistics.

WS More or Less: How to measure a Hurricane

15 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

What’s the best way to measure a hurricane?

Are Natural Disasters on the Rise?

15 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Has the number of natural disasters really quadrupled in the last forty years?

WS More or Less: More Horses than Tanks?

11 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Is the UK the only country with more horses than tanks in its army?

Electric cars, school-ready and feedback

08 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Will we need more power stations? Plus, are children in Manchester ready for school?

One in 500 Year Storm

04 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Experts are saying that Houston just suffered a one in 500 year storm but what does that mean?

Grenfell Tower's Death Toll

01 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The difficulties of finding the true number of people who died in the fire.

Fantasy Football - How to win

28 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Figuring out the best strategy as a wannabe team manager.

A-levels, drowning and dress sizes

25 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Are boys getting more top A Level grades than girls? Plus why are dress sizes so weird?

The Trump Bump

20 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

During a recent press conference President Trump said: “I’ve created over a million jobs since I’m president. The country is booming. The stock ...

Are there 15,000 transgender people serving in the US military?

14 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

President Trump says transgender individuals cannot serve, but how many do already?

Why is Kenya’s election so expensive?

07 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

On Tuesday Kenyans go to the polls to elect members of parliament and the next president. A report in Quartz Africa has estimated that the cost of put...

More boys than girls in Sweden?

31 Jul 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Exploring if an influx of teenage boys claiming asylum skewed the population’s sex ratio

Maryam Mirzakhani – A Genius of Maths

24 Jul 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Celebrating the only woman to win the biggest prize in mathematics.

Calling the shots at Wimbledon

17 Jul 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Using statistics to prove or disprove the wisdom of tennis is the theme this week. In this digital age we are used to information at our fingertips. T...

Is Steph Curry cheap and how random is random?

10 Jul 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Are top basketball players underpaid?The American basketballer Stephen Curry has just signed the biggest contract in NBA history. The new deal will pa...

In Search of Woodall Primes

30 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

It’s the 100 year centenary of an obscure type of prime number – the Woodall Primes. To celebrate, stand-up mathematician Matt Parker is calling o...

How rare are deadly tower block fires?

26 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

How statistics can help us understand the tragic fire at London’s Grenfell Tower.

Trumpton Extra

21 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The Voice of 1960s British children’s TV series ‘Trumpton’, Brian Cant, died this week. The More or Less team has visited the town of Trumpton o...

Post-Election Special

19 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The results of the general election are in - but what do they mean? Did more young people vote than expected? Have we now got a more diverse parliamen...

WS More or Less: Are African football players more likely to die on the field?

12 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Cheick Tiote, the much loved former Newcastle United player collapsed and died while training with Chinese side Beijing Enterprises earlier this month...

UK Election extra

07 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

This podcast is a compilation of interviews by the More or Less team with Eddie Mair from Radio 4’s PM programme. Each interview features a differen...

WS More or Less: Samba, strings and the story of HIV

05 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Trumpets are blasting in this week’s musical episode. But can medical statistics be transformed into a jazzy night out? That was the challenge which...

Election Special: Tax, borders and climate

02 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

On this final programme of the series we try to give some context to some of the issues that are being discussed during the current election campaign....

WS More or Less: Have 65% of future jobs not yet been invented?

28 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Our entire education system is faulty, claim experts. They worry that schools don’t prepare kids for the world outside. But how could anyone prove w...

Spies, care homes, and ending sneak peeks

26 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Can security services follow everyone known to them?The attack on Manchester Arena took place exactly four years since the killing of Drummer Lee Rigb...

WS More or Less: Uganda’s refugees

22 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Has Uganda been accepting more refugees on a daily basis than some European countries manage in an entire year? That is the claim from the Norwegian R...

Tax, speed dating and sea ice

19 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Exploring the Labour manifesto's tax plans for high earners.

Nurses' pay, Scottish seats, Penalty shootouts

13 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

What is happening to nurses pay?Amid reports of nurses using food banks, Jeremy Hunt said he doesn’t recognise claims their wages are worth less now...

WS More or Less: Is my Baby a Giant?

12 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

All over the world mothers are given numbers as their baby grows. The numbers are from ‘growth charts’ showing how a baby is developing in compari...

WS More or Less: An urban maze

08 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Why some parts of town are hard to navigate.

Is Crime Rising?

05 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

It looks like homicides are on the rise - but better check the footnotes

WS More or Less: The Maths of Dating

01 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

How to use mathematics to find your partner. And, how reliable are pregnancy due dates?

Fact-checking Boris Johnson

28 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Giant bombs, a war hero and the foreign secretary's stats.

WS More or Less: The death rate of white Americans – What’s going on?

21 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Are middle-aged white Americans dying younger than other groups?

Living standards and Kate Bush maths

21 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Are people's incomes falling? Plus singing Pi like Kate Bush

WS More or Less: The Ignorance Test

14 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

How much do you know about the world?

Economics of Overbooking

14 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Why airlines bet that not everybody will turn up for a flight.

WS More or Less: Could North Korea Wipe out 90% of Americans?

10 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

A single nuclear weapon could destroy America’s entire electrical grid, claims a former head of the CIA. The explosion would send out an electromagn...

WS More or Less: Will one in four people develop a mental health problem?

31 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The claim that “one in four” of us will suffer from a mental health problem is popular amongst campaigners, politicians and the media. But this le...

WS More Or Less: Baby Boxes – are they really saving infant’s lives?

24 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Ever since a BBC article highlighted the use of baby boxes in Finland they have become a bit of a phenomenon. They’re not new though Finland has bee...

More or Less: The concrete facts about Trump’s wall and China

17 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Did China use more concrete in three years than the US in the 20th Century?

WS More or Less: The Attention Span of a Goldfish

10 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Are our attention spans now shorter than a goldfish's?

WS More or Less: Why are Hollywood actresses paid less than men?

03 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Top Hollywood actresses have complained that they are paid less than their male co-stars

WS More or Less: What happened last night in Sweden?

24 Feb 2017

Contributed by Lukas

What happened last night in Sweden?

Hidden Figures: The Real Story

17 Feb 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Hidden Figures, the film, has been nominated for three awards at the Oscars and has been a box office hit in the US. It tells the little-known story o...

WS More or Less: Hans Rosling - the extraordinary life of a statistical guru

13 Feb 2017

Contributed by Lukas

A huge hole was left in the world this week with the death of the Swedish statistician Han Rosling. He was a master communicator whose captivating pre...

WS More or Less: Is democracy failing in America?

03 Feb 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Does North Carolina really rank alongside North Korea if you measure electoral integrity

WS More or Less: Counting Crowds

27 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

How many went to celebrate – and how many to protest – the Trump inauguration?

WS More or Less: Why January makes us want to scream

20 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Blue Monday and Oxfam’s comparison wealth of billionaires and the poor –the stories that come around every year.

WS More or Less: Christian Martyrs

13 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Were 90,000 Christians killed because of their faith in 2016?

WS More or Less: Should we really be drinking eight glasses of water a day?

06 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

How much water should you be drinking? There’s some age-old advice that suggests you should be drinking eight ounces (230 ml) eight times a day. Som...

WS More or Less: Does Sweden Really Have a Six Hour Day?

03 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

There have been reports that those radical Swedes have decided to reduce the working day to just six hours because, it has been claimed, productivity ...

The Haber-Bosch Process

28 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Saving lives with thin air - by taking nitrogen from the air to make fertiliser

WS More or Less: Life, death and data

26 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Improving data to target help to the poorest people

Christmas Quiz

23 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Tim Harford poses a tough statistical challenge

WS More or Less: Yellow cards for Christmas

16 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Are footballers trying to get suspended for Christmas?

Have more famous people died this year?

16 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Notable deaths, Rule Britannia and creating your own Christmas speech

WS More or Less: How risky is the contraceptive pill?

12 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

We look at the numbers behind the scary headlines about birth control.

How wrong were the Brexit forecasts?

09 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The economic doom that never was; childhood cancer figures and Ed Balls

WS More or Less: How not to test public opinion

02 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The survey by the Indian PM that broke all the polling rules and started a mass protest

Are you related to Edward III - and Danny Dyer?

02 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

What are the odds of being related to a medieval king? and how many cows for a fiver?

WS More or Less: Good news on renewables?

28 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Renewable capacity has surpassed that of coal–is this good news? Plus an asteroid update.

Pensioners aren't poor anymore

25 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

High-rolling pensioners? predicting Norovirus, air pollution deaths and lost or found?

WS More or Less: Avoiding Asteroids

21 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A new NASA warning system means we’re getting better at spotting Earth-bound space rocks. But how safe are we?

Is dementia the number one killer?

18 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Is dementia on the rise? Plus immigration, incomplete contacts and chocolate muffins

WS More or Less: Liberia’s Rape Statistic Debunked

14 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Sexual violence was widespread in Liberia’s brutal and bloody year civil war. But were three quarters of women in the country raped? We tell the st...

US election, stray cats and puzzles

11 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Who voted in the US elections? Plus are there nine million stray cats in the UK?

WS More or Less: Ice Cream versus aid

07 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Does the world really spend three times as much on ice cream than on humanitarian aid?