Pompeii and statistics? Iron age tombs and correspondence analysis? It comes as a surprise to many that there are any applications at all of statistics and mathematics in archaeology. But as Mike Baxter explains, counting what you find can give new insights into the past.
]]>Rare earths are essential to green technologies, but China supplies 98% of them. Some have risen in price 200-fold – by 20 000%– in a year. Is China holding the world to ransom? A World Trade Organisation case is brewing. Rare earths are not rare, say Mark Tyrer and John P. Sykes; but it does need statistics to understand the likely outcome of the WTO case – and why the industry is important.
]]>Since the very beginnings of agriculture, farmers have known which corners of their fields were wetter, which drier, which sandier and where the crops grow best. Now, says Margaret A. Oliver, technology and statistics are taking this age-old knowledge to a new level. It is called precision agriculture.
]]>The UK government has been considering whether to introduce minimum unit pricing for alcohol. Extraordinarily precise benefits have been claimed for the measure, down to exactly how many lives a year will be saved. But are the statistics real or illusory?John C. Duffy says they are flawed to the point of uselessness.
]]>When a major disaster strikes, urgent needs may be food, water, shelter, medicines – and data. Unless you know the numbers of people involved and how their lives have been affected, giving efficient help is impossible. Statistics Without Borders tries to provide the data. The team that worked on a project in Haiti describe one effort.
]]>Every working parent wants good day care for their children. But when resources are limited, some children lose out. And as Erica Moodie, Amee Manges and James Hanley found to their cost, for some children the odds are almost impossibly stacked…
]]>Does a graph show toleration rising, or levelling off?Danny Dorling read the New York Times and finds it all depends how you look at it.
]]>Stephen Senn warns us that some things work backwards, but others do not.
]]>Books reviewed in this issue.
Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data Charles Wheelan
Practical Business Statistics, Sixth Edition Andrew F. Siegel
The Real Cost of Cheap Food Michael Carolan
The draw for the matches in this year's UEFA Champions League produced a surprise: the draw result was exactly the same as at the rehearsal. Sixteen teams had been paired against each other in exactly the same way, twice running. Yet the draw was supposed to be random. Was it a 2 million to one coincidence? A fix? Or was it only to be expected?Michael Wallace and John Haigh draw some conclusions.
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