More or Less Episodes Episode guide

Do 29,000 coffee pods really go to landfill every minute?

We explore the environmental consequences of our thirst for coffee
Reoffending rates, Welsh taxes and the menopause

Tim Harford and team fact check a government claim about falling reoffending rates.
Florence Nightingale and how she visualised data

Tim Harford discusses the power of the nurse statistician’s groundbreaking diagrams
Nurses' pay, ambulance times and forgotten female economists

We look at how much nurses in the UK are paid compared with those in Europe.
Spreadsheet disasters

The long and costly history of spreadsheet mistakes
The IMF and the UK economy, NHS staff shortages and British v English

How much should we trust the IMF’s forecasts for the UK?
Hannah Fry on using shopping data to detect ovarian cancer

The mathematician discusses a study that suggests loyalty card data could signal cancer.
Brexit and trade; pensioner millionaires; and Hannah Fry on loyalty cards and cancer

We examine a claim that the UK’s trade with the EU has increased since Brexit.
Are wild mammals only 4% of the mammal population?

We examine a study that says humans and livestock dominate mammal life on Earth
Coffee with the chancellor, inflation measures, GP numbers and toilet paper

We fact check Jeremy Hunt’s pledge to halve inflation.
Does toilet paper cause 15% of global deforestation?

We investigate the impact of our use of toilet paper on the world’s forests.
Ambulance response times, teacher pay and Irish pubs

How long are people really waiting when they call 999 for an ambulance?
How we shook the world of very large numbers

How an edition of More or Less influenced the naming of enormous numbers
A&E delays and deaths, religious identity in N Ireland and naming the monster numbers

How many people may be dying because of treatment delays in the NHS?
Can China's data on Covid deaths be trusted?

Is China under-reporting data on Covid related deaths?
Irish pubs - a global numbers game

Are there more Irish pubs in Ireland than in all other countries combined?
What are the numbers of 2022?

Tim Harford and guests on the numbers that help tell the big stories of the year.
Qatar World Cup: The pressure of penalties

We analyse World Cup penalty data to ask what boosts the chance of scoring from the spot
Why is data so important in determining how we live?

Tim Harford on how good policies depend on the availability of reliable statistics
World Cup in Qatar: How many migrant workers have died?

Examining the wildly varying estimates of deaths in the run-up to the tournament in Qatar
When do food shortages become a famine?

With Somalia in crisis, we ask how data is used to officially declare a famine
A $220 billion World Cup?

Has hosting the Fifa football World Cup really cost Qatar $220bn?
Improving the numbers in the news

Tim Harford discusses the role statistics should play in the reporting of the news
Lula’s 'zero deforestation' plan for the Amazon

How much of the rainforest has been lost? And can Brazil’s new president save it?
Can China’s GDP data be trusted?

Are China’s most recent figures for economic growth wrong?
Do half of new books really sell fewer than twelve copies?

We look into a claim that 50% of new books in the US sell just a handful of copies.
Ben Bernanke and the magic of banking

Tim Harford explains the work of this year’s Nobel Economics Prize winners
Catching chess cheats with data

A cheating scandal is rocking the world of chess - and data is at its heart
Teens and antidepressants, stamp duty savings and earthquake probabilities

We debunk a claim that a third of British teenagers have been prescribed antidepressants.
Nasa’s asteroid collision: How many asteroids are really out there?

As Nasa rams an asteroid to try and alter its course, how many are yet to be discovered?