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Tim Harford explains - and sometimes debunks - the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life

How much water does AI consume?

8 mins; March 28, 2026

Paul Ehrlich: The man who bet England wouldn’t exist by the year 2000

8 mins; March 21, 2026

Transgender women in sport: Does ‘comparable’ mean ‘equal’?

8 mins; March 14, 2026

US-Israel war with Iran: Do the gulf states have enough interceptor missiles?

8 mins; March 07, 2026

Has a company really discovered a million new species?

8 mins; February 28, 2026

Did AI researchers let AI hallucinations into scientific papers?

8 mins; February 21, 2026

Is an ancient charioteer the best paid sportsperson of all time?

8 mins; February 17, 2026

Is this Premier League striker a secret maths genius?

8 mins; February 07, 2026

Could Europe use its financial muscle to strong-arm the US?

8 mins; January 31, 2026

Can you get £71,000 on benefits?

28 mins; January 28, 2026

Is Greenland as big as Africa?

8 mins; January 24, 2026

How close is Greenland to the United States?

29 mins; January 21, 2026

No, a study has not shown that the covid jab causes cancer

8 mins; January 17, 2026

Have more than 100 private schools been forced to close because of VAT?

28 mins; January 14, 2026

Does Venezuela really have the biggest oil reserves in the world?

8 mins; January 10, 2026

The Stats of the Nation: Immigration, benefits and inequality

28 mins; January 09, 2026

The Stats of the Nation: Older people, education, prisons and the weather

28 mins; January 08, 2026

The Stats of the Nation: Sex, drugs and empty homes

29 mins; January 07, 2026

The Stats of the Nation: Health

28 mins; January 06, 2026

The Stats of the Nation: The Economy

28 mins; January 05, 2026

Numbers of the year 2026

8 mins; January 03, 2026

Numbers of the year 2025

27 mins; December 31, 2025

Numbers of the year 2025

8 mins; December 27, 2025

Were there really Three Wise Men?

28 mins; December 24, 2025

The shocking world of US health costs

8 mins; December 20, 2025

Do we really have ‘superflu’?

28 mins; December 17, 2025

RCP 8.5: Why did the climate change model get it wrong?

8 mins; December 13, 2025

Is RFK right about US sperm counts?

8 mins; December 06, 2025

Richard Thaler and The Winner’s Curse

8 mins; November 29, 2025

Is there a stock market crash coming?

8 mins; November 22, 2025

Has there been a $50 trillion wealth transfer to the richest Americans?

8 mins; November 15, 2025

Is RFK Jr right about China's diabetes rate?

8 mins; November 08, 2025

Halloween special: How many people did the real Dracula impale?

8 mins; October 31, 2025

Is your housework split sexist?

8 mins; October 25, 2025

Nobel economics prize 2025: What's the big idea?

8 mins; October 18, 2025

Are millions of people getting Motability cars for anxiety and ADHD?

28 mins; October 15, 2025

Are 72% of prison inmates in Switzerland foreign?

8 mins; October 11, 2025

Does half the UK get more in benefits than they pay in tax?

26 mins; October 08, 2025

Is the world getting less miserable?

8 mins; October 04, 2025

Has Donald Trump ended seven 'unendable' wars?

28 mins; October 01, 2025

The Case of the Missing US Data

8 mins; September 27, 2025

Was it easier to deport migrants to France before Brexit?

28 mins; September 24, 2025

Is JD Vance right about left-wing violence?

8 mins; September 20, 2025

Is it true that out-of-work benefits have almost doubled?

29 mins; September 17, 2025

Will the world really be 50 million workers short by 2030?

8 mins; September 13, 2025

Are Afghan nationals more likely to be convicted of sexual offences?

28 mins; September 10, 2025

Do 11,000 sharks die every hour?

8 mins; September 06, 2025

Are self-driving cars safer than cars with drivers?

8 mins; August 30, 2025

Do women feel the cold more than men?

8 mins; August 23, 2025

How weird was the Med Sea heatwave?

8 mins; August 16, 2025

Why it matters that Trump fired data chief

8 mins; August 09, 2025

Are abortion numbers rising in the US?

8 mins; August 06, 2025

Does a single AI query use a bottle of water?

8 mins; August 06, 2025

Are abortion numbers rising in the US?

8 mins; August 06, 2025

Does a single AI query use a bottle of water?

8 mins; July 26, 2025

Are one in six children living through war?

8 mins; July 19, 2025

Why Manchester United can afford to play badly

8 mins; July 12, 2025

Can drinking one less bottle of coke a day halve obesity?

26 mins; July 09, 2025

The economics of war: Vikings, Conquistadors and Vietnam

8 mins; July 05, 2025

Is the UK seeing a Christian revival?

28 mins; July 02, 2025

Has Russia suffered a million casualties in the Ukraine war?

8 mins; June 28, 2025

Why is data on grooming gangs so bad?

28 mins; June 25, 2025

How to spot a suspicious statistic

8 mins; June 21, 2025

Are 4% of young women in the UK on OnlyFans?

28 mins; June 18, 2025

Could you be hit by a falling satellite?

9 mins; June 14, 2025

How do you make something 10-times more lethal?

28 mins; June 11, 2025

Is the world’s population being miscounted?

8 mins; June 07, 2025

Does the average American have fewer than three friends?

28 mins; June 04, 2025

Factchecking the Trump administration’s Autism claims

9 mins; May 31, 2025

Is the UN underestimating the global fall in fertility?

8 mins; May 24, 2025

How dead is the internet?

8 mins; May 17, 2025

Warren Buffett’s brilliant bets

8 mins; May 10, 2025

Bonus episode: The Autism Curve

15 mins; May 05, 2025

Donald Trump: 100 days fact-check

9 mins; May 03, 2025

Are 80% of women really only attracted to 20% of men?

8 mins; April 26, 2025

The pioneers of proof

8 mins; April 19, 2025

How much is a human life worth?

8 mins; April 12, 2025

The mistake in Trump’s tariff formula

29 mins; April 09, 2025

Trump tariffs: All about the deficits

8 mins; April 04, 2025

Is one in four people in the UK disabled?

26 mins; April 02, 2025

What’s Trump’s problem with Canada?

8 mins; March 29, 2025

Could a 2% wealth tax raise £24bn?

28 mins; March 26, 2025

What are the chances of an asteroid hitting earth in 2032?

8 mins; March 22, 2025

Why are more people claiming disability benefits?

28 mins; March 19, 2025

How did lockdown impact children?

41 mins; March 17, 2025

What is an IQ map and can we trust them?

8 mins; March 15, 2025

DOGE, apples and irregular migrants

28 mins; March 12, 2025

Is there really $500bn of Rare Earths in Ukraine?

8 mins; March 08, 2025

Defence Spending, Rare Earths and Trunk Truths

28 mins; March 05, 2025

Has the US really given Ukraine more aid than Europe?

8 mins; March 01, 2025

Are 150 year olds getting social security payments?

8 mins; February 22, 2025

Has the US sent $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza?

8 mins; February 15, 2025

Are black babies in the US really more likely to die under the care of white doctors?

8 mins; February 08, 2025

Are quantum computers already super-powerful?

8 mins; February 01, 2025

Did Trump make billions with his meme-coin?

8 mins; January 25, 2025

Can redheads handle 25% more pain than brunettes?

8 mins; January 17, 2025

Do 79% of Swedish asylum seekers go on holiday to the country they fled from?

8 mins; January 11, 2025

Numbers of the year part 2

9 mins; January 04, 2025

Numbers of the year 2024

8 mins; December 28, 2024

Did Mussolini make the trains run on time?

8 mins; December 21, 2024

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