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Soaring diabetes - is there some good news?

Diabetes cases are soaring. But is this down to new diagnoses? Tim Harford investigates. And should Leicestershire police be congratulated on an unusual experiment?

Diabetes
We heard earlier this week that there had been a 60% rise in the number of cases of diabetes in the last ten years. But is there actually some good news in these figures?

Odd (attempted) burglaries
Police in Leicestershire have been sending forensic teams only to attempted burglaries at houses with even numbers. The papers reported it as a scandal driven by money-saving. But was it in fact a sensible attempt to work out how best to deploy tight resources?

Men who pay for sex
Do one in 10 men regularly pay for sex, as a Channel 4 Documentary claimed recently?

Loop
The ancient Greeks saw magic in the geometry of an ellipse and now mathematical writer Alex Bellos has but this to use in a new variant of pool.

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28 minutes

Last on

Sun 23 Aug 2015 20:00

Broadcasts

  • Fri 21 Aug 2015 16:30
  • Sun 23 Aug 2015 20:00

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When can you trust statistics?

When can you trust statistics?

BBC Ideas discovers three easy ways to help make sense of statistics.

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