The bill for Afghanistan

Did the war in Afghanistan cost the US $2 trillion?

• 9 mins

Is immunity from vaccines waning?

How worried should we be about declining antibodies? Plus life-threatening hotdogs.

• 9 mins

How many holes are there in a drinking straw?

Tim Harford talks to Jordan Ellenberg about the pandemic, geometry and drinking straws

• 9 mins

Has the number of periods a woman has in her lifetime quadrupled?

A claim about how many periods a woman has and a suspicious stat on single-use face masks

• 9 mins

The Gender Pay Gap

Can Machiavelli help women get a better deal in the workplace?

• 9 mins

Vaccinating the world

How countries’ vaccination rates measure up – and the trickiness of comparing them.

• 9 mins

The prize-winning economics of migration and the minimum wage

A look at the work of this year’s winners of the most prestigious prize in economics.

• 9 mins

The numbers behind Squid Game

Could you survive a round in Squid Game, and how many have watched it?

• 9 mins

The art of counting

Tim Harford talks to author Deborah Stone about her book which explores counting

• 9 mins

Same data, opposite results. Can we trust research?

Why the same data can produce different conclusions.

• 9 mins

The carbon cost of breakfast at COP26

Can a vegan croissant really be worse for the environment than a bacon roll?

• 9 mins

A TikTok tale

How a well-meaning TikTok disrupted 4,600 studies.

• 9 mins

Simpson’s Paradox: How to make vaccinated death figures misleading

A tricky statistical phenomenon at play.

• 9 mins

Does wearing a mask halve your chances of getting Covid-19?

Is it true wearing a mask reduces Covid-19 incidence by 53%?

• 9 mins

Does catching Covid give you more immunity than being vaccinated?

Infection vs injection: Could Covid infection provide 27 times more protection?

• 9 mins

The psychological economics of gift giving

How to buy gifts people actually want.

• 9 mins

Numbers of 2021

The most significant numbers of the year

• 9 mins

Will the population of Nigeria be larger than Europe’s?

Will Nigeria’s population really reach 600million?

• 9 mins

How much plastic is in the ocean and can Mr Beast make a difference?

Can two social media stars remove $30million worth of plastic from the ocean?

• 9 mins

QAnon: Did 365,348 children go missing in the US in 2020?

Fact checking a QAnon claim.

• 9 mins

Are female patients more likely to die if the surgeon is male?

Should women be worried about having a male surgeon?

• 9 mins

Fertility rates: Baby boom or bust?

Fertility rates around the world

• 9 mins

Placebo: Can you fool your brain?

Looking at the power of expectations

• 9 mins

Testosterone and sport

Trans women’s participation in elite sport

• 9 mins

Hospitalisation rates for children with Covid

What does the data tell us?

• 9 mins

Did lockdowns save any lives?

Did lockdowns actually save any lives?

• 9 mins

Numbers in Ukraine and low seas in Chagos

Troop and casualty numbers in Ukraine

• 9 mins

Does the UK take in more refugees than other European countries?

Fact checking Boris Johnson’s claim

• 9 mins

Pizza and nuclear war

How good negotiation can help us split pizzas fairly and also avoid nuclear war.

• 9 mins

Why has Hong Kong’s Covid wave been so bad?

What’s behind one of the worst Covid death rates ever?

• 9 mins