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BBC Radio 4

Exactly how many people live on our planet is one of those difficult-to-answer questions. The UN estimates is 8.2 billion, but that’s largely based on census data, which is certainly not a perfect measure. 

So when a recent study from Finland found that rural populations around the world had been underestimated by 50 to over 80%, the media got quite excited. This would be a big error - a 50% underestimate would mean the actual number of people in an area is double the number they thought there were. 

One newspaper in Spain - El Mundo - did its own sums and said this meant there were potentially 2 billion more people in the world than we currently think there are. 

But is it what the researchers in Finland actually meant? 

“Absolutely not,” says Josias Lang-Ritter, a researcher from University in Finland and a co-author of the study.

Tim Harford speaks to Josias to figure out the right way of understanding the study.

Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Caroline Bayley
Series producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound mix: Nigel Appleton
Editor: Richard Vadon

More or Less: Behind the Stats

When World War Two came to Greece, a period of terrible human suffering followed. There was a brutal battle with Italian and then Nazi forces, followed by an occupation in which thousands were executed and a terrible famine swept the nation. 

There’s an often repeated number that appears to capture the brutality of this time – that 10% of the Greek population died during the war. 

We investigate where this statistic comes from and whether it is true. 

Presenter: Charlotte McDonald
Producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Katie Morrison
Sound mix: Neil Churchill 
Editor: Richard Vadon

Did one in 10 Greeks die in World War Two?

Are most Americans barely holding their head above water when it comes to personal finances?
 
That’s what various US politicians and news outlets keep suggesting. 
 
They can’t stop using a statistic about people living “paycheck to paycheck”. 
 
But what does this really mean? 

We go behind the headlines to unpick the numbers.
 
Contributor: 
Ben Krauss, journalist 
 
Presenter: Charlotte McDonald
Producer: Vicky Baker and Lizzy McNeill
Series Producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Katie Morrison
Sound Engineer: Andrew Mills
Editor: Richard Vadon

How many Americans live ‘paycheck to paycheck’?

“Say what you like about Mussolini but he did make the trains run on time.” This phrase is the political equivalent of “every cloud has a silver lining” – but does it have any factual basis? 
 
Mussolini’s dictatorship in Italy was full of atrocities, brutal suppression and propaganda. Did it also create a more efficient railway network? 
 
We speak to Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat about the truth of the claim and why the Mussolini regime wanted us to believe it. 
 
 
Presenter: Lizzy McNeill
Producer: Lizzy McNeill
Researcher: Esme Winterbotham
Series Producer: Tom Colls
Editor: Richard Vadon
Sound Master: James Beard
Production Co-ordinator: Katie Morrison.

Image: Benito Mussolini in his train studying maps. (Photo by ullstein picture/ullstein picture via Getty Images)

Did Mussolini make the trains run on time?

It’s that time of year again, the time when we ask some of our favourite statistically-inclined people for their numbers of the year. 
We present them to you - from falling birth rates in India to children saved by vaccines. 

Contributors: 
RukminiS, Data for India
Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, Cambridge University, 
Hannah Ritchie, Our World in Data. 

Presenter: Charlotte McDonald
Producers: Lizzy McNeill and Vicky Baker
Series Producer: Tom Colls
Editor: Richard Vadon
Sound Engineer: Donald McDonald and Rod Farquhar

Numbers of the year 2024

We asked and you responded, this edition of ‘numbers of the year’ are from you. our loyal listeners. We scoured the inboxes to find three fascinating numbers that say something about the world we live in now and put them to our experts.
Tune if you want to hear about rising global temperatures, what Taylor Swift has in common with 65 years olds and facts about fax (machines). 

Contributors: 
Amanda Maycock, University of Leeds
Jennifer Dowd, University of Oxford

Presenter: Charlotte McDonald
Reporter: Lizzy McNeill
Producer: Vicky Baker and Lizzy McNeill
Series Producer: Tom Colls
Editor: Richard Vadon
Sound Engineer: Rod Farquhar.

Numbers of the year part 2

The claim that 79% of asylum seekers in Sweden go on holiday in their home country has been repeated regularly on social media. 
It’s used to argue that recent refugees are being disingenuous about the danger they face in the country they have fled from. 
But when you look at the survey the claim is based on, you see the stat in a very different way. 
We speak to Hjalmar Strid, who ran the survey for polling company Novus, and Tino Sanandaji from Bulletin, the online news site which published it.

Presenter: Charlotte McDonald
Producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Katie Morrison
Sound Mix: Neil Churchill
Editor: Richard Vadon

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

What has the colour of your hair got to do with your capacity to withstand pain? 

We investigate the claim, which regularly circulates on social media, that natural redheads are 25% tougher than their brunette peers. 

Pain expert Jeff Mogil explains how it all comes down to something called MC1R. 

Presenter: Charlotte McDonald
Producer: Lizzy McNeill
Series Producer: Tom Colls
Editor: Richard Vadon
Production Co-ordinator: Katie Morrison

Can redheads handle 25% more pain than brunettes?

Just before being inaugurated as US president for the second time, Donald Trump launched something called a “meme-coin”.
 
This is a bespoke cryptocurrency token featuring a picture of Donald Trump. A billion of them may eventually be created.

Newspaper headlines claimed that the Trump meme-coin had made the president billions of dollars wealthier. But it is far from clear that this is the case.
 
Presenter: Charlotte McDonald
Producer: Lizzy McNeill
Series producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound mix: Mike Etherden 
Editor: Richard Vadon

Did Trump make billions with his meme-coin?

Google claim their latest quantum computer chip is able to process something in five minutes it would take a normal computer 10 septillion years to figure out.

As this is a massive amount longer than the entire history of the known universe, that seems to suggest the chip is extremely powerful. 

But when you understand what’s going on, the claim doesn’t seem quite so impressive. Dr Peter Leek, a quantum computer scientist from Oxford University, explains the key context. 

Presenter: Charlotte McDonald
Producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound mix: Andrew Garratt
Editor: Richard Vadon

Are quantum computers already super-powerful?

Babies born in the US to Black Hispanic or African American mothers are more likely to die than any other ethnic group in America. 

That is a fact. 

But the reason why this happens is unclear. In 2020 a study came out that claimed that black babies attended by white doctors after birth were twice as likely to die than white babies attended by white doctors. 

People jumped to the conclusion that the race of the doctor was leading to the different outcomes. But when you delve into the numbers, a very different picture starts to emerge.

Presenter: Lizzy McNeill
Series producer: Tom Colls
Production coordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound mix: Steve Greenwood 
Editor: Richard Vadon

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

Veronica Carlin is a data scientist who loves romantic comedies. But she had a hunch about those movies, that there aren’t many women like her, women in STEM - science, technology, engineering and maths – taking the lead roles. So she set out on a maths quest to find out what’s what. 

Presenter: Kate Lamble 
Series Producer: Tom Colls 
Editor: Richard Vadon 
Sound Engineer: Graham Puddifoot 

(Picture: A young couple with a heart-shaped balloon on the street 
Credit: Cultura RM Exclusive/Spark Photographic / Getty)

A boy meets girl meets stats story

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