More or Less: Behind the Stats Episodes Episode guide
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Drinks and drugs capital of the world? (WS)
Do residents of the tiny micronesian island of Palau really smoke more cannabis, and...
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Domestic Violence, Jobs, Easter Snowfall
Tim Harford on domestic violence, employment numbers, and the chance of a white Easter.
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Does your jewellery contain stolen Brinkβs-Mat gold?
We ask what happened to the 3 tonnes of pure gold after the infamous robbery of 1983
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Does wearing a mask halve your chances of getting Covid-19?
Is it true wearing a mask reduces Covid-19 incidence by 53%?
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Does toilet paper cause 15% of global deforestation?
We investigate the impact of our use of toilet paper on the worldβs forests.
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Does the World Athletics Championships have a false start problem?
We examine the rules and tech of false starts after the disqualification of Devon Allen.
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Does the UK take in more refugees than other European countries?
Fact checking Boris Johnsonβs claim.
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Does the UK have the fastest growing economy in the G7?
How fast is our economy growing? And what is happening with Omicron reinfections?
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Does the Russian government really spend 40% of its budget on the military?
We investigate how much the Russian state is spending on the war in Ukraine.
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Does it take 10,000 litres of water to make a pair of jeans?
The numbers behind water use and denim production.
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Does it take 10,000 litres of water to make a pair of jeans?
The numbers behind water use and denim production
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Does endurance sport harm your heart?
We investigate the connection between high levels of exercise and arrhythmia
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Does catching covid give you more immunity than being vaccinated?
Infection vs injection: Could prior infection provide 27 times more protection?
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Does Breastfeeding Increase IQ?
A major 30-year study claims to show breastfed babies become more intelligent, higher...
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Does a language die every two weeks?
Languages are disappearing. We investigate claims of how often this happens.
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Do we see 10,000 adverts per day?
We investigate the claim that each of us sees thousands of adverts every single day
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Do we eat a credit card's worth of microplastic each week?
We look at whether humans really ingest five grams of microplastic on a weekly basis
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Do one in five young Americans think the holocaust is a myth?
How problems with opt-in polling can lead to controversial headlines
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Do Indian women own 11% of the worldβs gold?
The cultural importance of gold is well known β but how much do Indians actually own?
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Do half of new books really sell fewer than twelve copies?
We look into a claim that 50% of new books in the US sell just a handful of copies.
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Do fungi kill three times as many people as malaria?
We investigate the claim that fungal infections are a much bigger killer than malaria.
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Do free school meals work?
All pupils at infant schools in England are to get free school lunches from next but I...
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Do big football clubs win more penalties?
Do Manchester United and other leading clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona benefit in...
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Do 94% of marriages in Portugal really end in divorce?
We examine a social media post that claims to outline rates of divorce across the world.
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Do 85% of the worldβs population practice a religion?
Counting religions across the globe β is the world getting more religious or less?
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Do 29,000 coffee pods really go to landfill every minute?
We explore the environmental consequences of our thirst for coffee
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Do βpig butcheringβ cyber scams make as much as half Cambodiaβs GDP?
We investigate the money made by an international cybercrime operation
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Did the WHO get some of its excess death estimates wrong?
We look at the World Health Organisationβs latest estimates of the pandemicβs death toll
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Did tea-drinking cut deaths in the Industrial Revolution?
How tea became an accidental lifesaver in 18th Century England.
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Did lockdowns save any lives?
Did lockdowns actually save any lives?