According to a poll conducted by the World Cancer Research Fund and reported by BBC News, just one in five Britons eats the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. If we are to take this seriously, it would be useful to know whether we are missing the target by a little or a lot: if the average number of portions consumed is 4.5 then that is a

The Daily Mail doesn’t pull its punches: Rise of poisonous caterpillar is unstoppable, say experts. The caterpillar is the larva of the oak processionary moth, and the story continues with the information that “Each caterpillar is covered in 63,000 hairs which can trigger potentially lethal asthma attacks” – and a warning that the London Olympics might be under threat. Of course, from a statistical point of view it is the

This week of all weeks, getting the numbers right is going to be important, whatever George Osborne pulls out of his red Budget box. Already, unfortunately, we’ve seen press reports demonstrating that some journalists still can’t distinguish their median from their mean. There’s going to be lots of talk about fairness, directing attention to the impact of Budget measures on the distribution of income and rewards. The Institute for Fiscal Studies

A prominent Daily Telegraph food scare story Red meat is blamed for 1 in 10 deaths  is so flawed statistically that it is difficult to take it seriously. The opening paragraph sets the tone. Small quantities of processed meat such as bacon, sausages or salami can increase the likelihood of dying by a fifth, researchers from Harvard School of Medicine found. Eating steak increases the risk of dying by 12%.

The Office for National Statistics has added tablet computers to the basket of goods and services used to calculate changes in prices in the UK economy. Each year the statistics agency reviews trends in what people buy so the indexes of prices (the Consumer Price Index and the Retail Price Index) are kept up to date. Another addition is fiction bought by teenagers. ONS says this was previously covered by its

A group of 537 businessmen wrote a letter to The Daily Telegraph recently calling for the abolition of the 50p income tax rate in the UK, arguing as follows. “Given the current state of the UK economy, we urge the Chancellor to urgently consider scrapping the top rate of tax in his forthcoming budget. The tax, which is in effect a 58p tax after national insurance is taken into account,

A review by American psychologist Ellen Peters concludes that people who like and understand numbers tend to make better decisions – at least when quantitative data is to hand. They are less influenced by the way information is presented and may resist spin. In a paper in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science (21(1) 31-15 2012) Professor Peters of Ohio State University says the evidence shows less numerate people are

The World Bank  congratulates itself on its open data. Chad Dobson, executive director of the Bank’s information center says it ‘continues to set the standard for other institutions to strive for’. In the development aid arena, it is said to be remarkably transparent, as a donor. But numbers are not automatically informative. The volume of figures an organisation puts out is not a guarantee of accountability. Openness is only the first

It’s official: women are actually better parkers than men – that’s according to a parking-survey published by NCP the car parks operator. Despite the impressive-sounding technical detail – “women have an average parking coefficient of 13.4, while the average male score was just 12.3” – this survey is really just a bit of fun. It does, however, raise an interesting statistical question. What do we mean when we say one

An article on the CNN website about Greece and the euro included information (see table below) on recent currency devaluations.  Now if the Argentinian peso had really been reduced in value by 280% it would literally be worth less than nothing; it would be a currency with negative value. Think about a sale in which an item originally costing £10 is reduced in price. If the reduction is 50% the new price