PODCAST · education
Stats + Stories
by The Stats + Stories Team
Statistics need Stories to give them meaning. Stories need Statistics to give them credibility. Every Thursday John Bailer & Rosemary Pennington get together with a new, interesting guest to bring you the Statistics behind the Stories and the Stories behind the Statistics.
Episodes
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Communicating Scientific Contributions | Stats + Stories Episode 394
When you think about science’s contribution to society, do you think first about new inventions with an immediate economic benefit? What about scientific advances that deliver enormous societal or environmental benefits—but whose economic value may not be immediate or easily measured? How can…
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The Dangers of GLP-1s | Stats + Stories Episode 393
Research suggests that more than half of Americans could benefit from taking a GLP-1 RA medication. The drugs were originally designed to help manage type two diabetes, but in 2024, the Food and Drug Administration approved one GLP-1, Semaglutide, for weight loss. With that approval came a spike…
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What is Nutrition Science | Stats + Stories Episode 214 (REPOST)
An entire industry has grown up around nutrition and health. People pushing everything from shakes, to meal kits, to special diets. While some of the claims surrounding such products can be questionable at best, the field of nutrition science is growing. Filled with researchers who are working to...
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Leadership and Women in Statistics | Stats + Stories Episode 392
Women regularly hold leadership roles in stats departments at universities and in major statistical organizations, but it wasn't so long ago that women had to fight to be included. At one point, women faculty had to climb through the windows of the faculty club at Berkeley to attend meetings…
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The Best Sports Stats from the Past Year | Stats + Stories Episode 391
Sports and statistics go hand-in-hand. But some of those statistics are more interesting than others. Each year, the Royal Statistical Society highlights some of the most compelling sports stats in its Sports Statistic of the Year competition this year’s winners are the focus of this episode of...
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The Impact of College Vaccine Mandates | Stats + Stories Episode 244 (REPOST)
Last academic year colleges and universities across the US struggled with whether to mandate COVID vaccinations for their students. While colleges often require vaccines, the political controversy surrounding the COVID shots made adopting a vaccine policy a complicated undertaking. But according…
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Taylor Swift and Markov Chains | Stats + Stories Episode 390
Taylor Swift is an entertainment juggernaut. She's become one of the best-selling musical artists of all time, with her Eras tour grossing more than $2 billion. During that tour, Swift surprised her audience each night with costume changes to mark different eras of her career. Now, a couple of...
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Urban Displacement | Stats + Stories Episode 389
It can take decades for an urban community to develop, but a fraction of that time for it to be torn apart. Each year, urban residents are forced out of their homes and out of their communities to make way for gentrification or other kinds of urban development. When these individuals are forced…
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Public Health Equity | Stats + Stories Episode 388
The World Health Organization defines health equity as a public health concept describing equity of access to health resources for genetic, socio-environmental, and economic determinants of health, varying according to individuals, families, and social or societal groups. Concerns about data…
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Running the Numbers: Portraits of Human Mass Culture | Stats + Stories Episode 387
A 2010 statistic reports that, on average, there are 29,000 personal bankruptcy filings per week in the US, while another states that, on average, 50,000 pieces of floating plastic per square mile are observed in the Pacific Ocean. How might art be used to convey the magnitude of these…
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Step Out in the Sunshine | Stats + Short Stories Episode 325 (REPOST)
As you reach the end of a long day with an excess of stress how do you recharge? Have you found that a long stroll in the sun or through the woods can provide this renewal? Walking in nature is the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guest Dr. Altea Lorenzo-Arribas. Dr. Altea...
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Building Statistical Capacity in Africa | Stats + Stories Episode 386
In order to promote the economic and social development of countries, you have to be clear about what economic and social development even means and how you'll measure these concepts. This is where official statistics excels. Many nations continue to build the capacity of their statistical…
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The Etymology of the Word Statistics | Stats + Stories Episode 248 (REPOST)
In the late 1600s, a book was published satirizing politics in Europe. Published two decades after the end of the 30 Years’ War, it focuses on the power of the Holy Roman Empire. That book’s impact on statistics is the focus of this episode of stats and stories, with guest Wallace Ferguson.…
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Odds of the Derby | Stats + Stories Episode 385
With the arrival of spring, anticipation grows for the start of horse racing in the United States. The pinnacle of success in the sport is achieved by a horse that will win each leg of the Triple Crown, which includes the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes. The…
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A Statistician Clears the Air | Stats + Stories Episode 20 (REPOST)
Barry Nussbaum (@StatisticsBarry ) is former Chief Statistician at the US EPA, and is president-elect of the American Statistical Association. Included among his many accomplishments at the EPA was providing leadership to the agency effort to remove lead from gasoline
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What Are Blue Foods? | Stats + Stories Episode 384
More than 3 billion people rely on seafood to supply a significant portion of the annual protein in their diets. That number will only rise as the global population grows. At the same time, the United Nations reports that 85% of the world's fisheries are overfished or fully exploited. Researchers...
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Suffragette Statistics | Stats + Stories Episode 318 (REPOST)
The work of suffragettes in both the United Kingdom and the United States has been immortalized in textbooks, as well as in movies and TV. The women activists who helped women gain the right to vote are often portrayed as heroes and radicals. What's gotten less attention is the connection between...
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Countering Vaccine Skepticism | Stats + Stories Episode 383 Pt. 2
In early January 2026, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced changes to the childhood immunization schedules, reducing the number of vaccines recommended for children. This change led to the U.S. being an outlier in terms of required vaccines for children. One reason…
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Countering Vaccine Skepticism | Stats + Stories Episode 383 Pt. 1
Three hundred and thirty-two days, that was the international statistic of the year in 2020, as identified by the Royal Statistical Society. That was the length of time between scientists publishing the genetic sequence of COVID-19 on the 11th of January, and an effective vaccine being…
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Measuring Poverty | Stats + Stories Episode 382
According to the World Bank, some 3.5 billion people live on less than $7 a day. That's more than 40% of the global population. Almost 700 million of those individuals live in extreme poverty, getting by on less than $2.15 a day. In the US in 2024, almost 40 million Americans were living in...
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Tracking Health Over Time | Stats + Stories Episode 85 (REPOST)
Dr. Lloyd Edwards is Professor and Chair of Biostatistics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Edwards has an extensive background in collaborating with researchers in a broad range of areas in biomedical research, including cardiovascular disease, cystic fibrosis, cancer, aging,...
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The Classic “Will They, or Won’t They?” and the Kiss Effect | Stats + Stories Episode 381
Television is filled with "will they or won't they" couples. Friends had Ross and Rachel. Parks and Rec had Leslie and Ben. The Gilmore Girls, had Lorelei and Luke. But what happens after the couple's kiss? Do we keep watching? One statistician dug into the data behind the kiss effect, and that's...
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Protecting Seaside Cities from Possible Future Impacts of Climate Change | Stats + Stories Episode 53 (REPOST)
Peter Guttorp (@pgseattle) is a Professor at the Norwegian Computing Center in Oslo, Norway, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is also a vice-president of the International Statistical Institute . His research focuses on stochastic models of scientific data and...
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Counting Costs of Conflict | Stats + Stories Episode 380
When it comes to studying conflict, there is obvious data to examine: spending on arms, the number of people killed or injured, and the amount of land won or lost. What's harder to track are the indirect effects of conflict, the ways it produces deaths over time, or its impacts on public health....
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Health Benefits of Riding an Electric Bike | Stats + Short Stories Episode 319 (REPOST)
Hybrid cars are everywhere now but what is your best option if you want to feel the wind in your hair, or at least under your helmet and you want to get a little exercise as well? Well, e-bikes are an answer and that’s the topic on this episode of Stats + Short Stories with guest Helaine Alessio....
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Hit Songs by the Numbers & What They Reveal About Us | Stats + Stories Episode 379
The Billboard Hot 100 has been ranking the week's most popular music since 1958. The first song to top the chart was Ricky Nelson's Poor Little Fool. The most recent song to do so is Taylor Swift's The Fate of Ophelia. A lot has changed in the music industry between those two songs, not only in…
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Data for Good | Stats + Stories Episode 378
On the podcast, we talk about the ways we live in and with data, as well as the ways data shape our lives and our politics. Public discourse around data is often wrapped up in the negative ways it can impact our lives. A movement among statisticians, data scientists, and other researchers shows…
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Just In Time For The Holiday Shopping Season - A Story About Online Marketing | Stats + Stories Episode 47 (REPOST)
Glenn Platt (@glennplatt) is the C. Michael Armstrong Professor of Network Technology & Management & Director of Interactive Media Studies at Miami University. He is interested in social media marketing, digital media and e-Commerc. He is also the faculty sponsor of the Esports team at Miami.
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Football Figures | Stats + Stories Episode 377
American Football is a game played with 11 players on offense competing against 11 players on defense, with a sequence of plays executed as one team attempts to outscore the other, but each discrete play reflects actions on the field by players and off the field by coaches. For example, what is…
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The Art of Uncertainty | Stats + Stories Episode 376
News stories are filled with tales of risk and uncertainty. We're told the probable chance of a weather event or how likely it is that we might contract an illness. There's an art to telling stories with uncertainty that provides context and nuance that is often missing. That is the focus of this...
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Thankful For A Bountiful Harvest - How Bountiful Was It And Who Produced It? | Stats + Stories Episode 45 (REPOST)
Linda J. Young is Chief Mathematical Statistician and Director of Research and Development of USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service . She oversees efforts to continually improve the methodology underpinning the Agency's collection and dissemination of data on every facet of U.S....
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Enhancing Statistical Literacy | Stats + Stories Episode 375
Statistical literacy was described by Iddo Gal as "the ability to interpret, critically, evaluate and communicate about statistical information and messages". With that in mind, get ready to take a journey on all the ways our guests are promoting statistical literacy in this episode of...
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No One is Poisoning Your Kids' Candy, Trust the Numbers | Stats + Stories Episode 206 (REPOST)
The costumes are ready and the annual opportunity to go out and harass your neighbors to get candy is once again upon us. Yes, it's time for Halloween. And along with Halloween comes the worry, the concern the fear that in fact, someone will be poisoning my kid’s candy. This is something that has...
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Deciphering Dishonest Charts | Stats + Stories Episode 374
Data visualizations are everywhere, showing up in social media, in the news, and on company websites. With this onslaught, it can be hard to know what visualizations to trust. Learning how to navigate bad graphs and charts is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Nathan Yau. Yau...
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The Age of the Supercentenarian | Stats + Stories Episode 229 (REPOST)
When American comedian and actor Betty White died, fans lamented the fact that she had just missed making it to her 100th birthday. They felt she’d been robbed of achieving a significant life moment. Some researchers think that this century could see more people making it to that moment and…
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Choosing a College in the Era of Polarization | Stats + Stories Episode 373
Fall is admissions season at universities across the United States. As colleges work to recruit a new class, a new working paper suggests that politics might impact where students decide to go to school. That’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories, with guest Riley Acton. Riley Acton is...
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Intl Prize Stat Winner Grace Wahba Legendary, Statistician & Mentor | Stats + Stories Episode 372
The international prize in statistics is awarded every two years by a collaboration among five leading international statistics organizations: the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the International Biometric Society, the International Statistical...
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Viral Statistical Capacity Building | Stats + Stories Episode 293 (REPOST)
Matthew Shearing is a private sector consultant working globally in partnership with the public, private and not-for-profit sectors on improving official statistics and other data systems, Monitoring and Evaluation, and embedding official statistics standards in wider international development....
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Reading Racy Research | Stats + Stories Episode 371
Have you ever wondered if what you eat is aging you, or whether women in red really are sexier? In addition to turning to Reddit for the answers to those questions, you can now tune into a new podcast. Normal Curves focuses on sexy science and serious statistics, and it's the focus of this…
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Comedy, Art, and ... Statistics? | Stats + Stories: Episode 370
A statistician walks into a bar, and a comedy and art show begins. Creative work for scholars can extend beyond novel research and application. In today's episode of stats and stories, we see how the intersection between interest in statistics and art, as well as the intersection of statistics…
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Communicating Statistics Effectively | Stats and Stories at JSM (REPOST)
John Bailer is “the stats guy” and co-creator of Stats+Stories. He is also University Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Statistics at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He is currently President-elect of the International Statistical Institute and previously served on the...
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Stat Significant | Stats + Stories Episode 369
Have you ever wondered if people actually hate Coldplay? Do you want statistical proof that Game of Thrones did not stick the landing in its finale? Have you wondered whether you’re actually seeing Nicholas Cage in more movies? Well, you’re in luck there’s a newsletter for that, and it’s the…
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Signing Statistics | Stats + Stories Episode 239 (REPOST)
What is a median? How about an interquartile range? Don’t even get me started on how to define a p-value. These statistical concepts are hard to grasp for your average statistics student, but imagining how these types of definitions translate into American Sign Language is a whole other ballgame....
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Excellence in Statistical Reporting | Stats + Stories Episode 368
The National Association of science writers has about 2000 members, even as the field of science journalism has been experiencing a contraction. In her 2025 Nieman lab prediction for journalism, Siri Carpenter suggested that, given the challenges the world faces, it might be time that newsrooms...
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The Ocean Health Index | Stats + Stories Episode 203 (REPOST)
The health of the world's oceans is a growing concern but measuring ocean health is a complicated undertaking. Some people studying the issue focus on pollution, while others look at the health of corals or marine mammals. One project attempts to take a comprehensive picture of the health of…
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Amazonian Ancient Earthworks | Stats + Stories Episode 367
The Amazon has been imagined as a pristine wilderness, one in need of protection from development. This framing has often treated the Amazon as a place without history, practically untouched before the arrival of colonizers in South America. Statistics is helping show the history is much more...
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Days of R COVID Lives | Stats + Stories Episode 366
Early in the COVID pandemic, as we figured out how to live our lives solely at home, news stories began to be filled with stories about COVID’s spread and reproduction rates. Soon, social media were filled with amateur epidemiologists trying to make sense of those rates and sometimes making a…
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Measuring the Impact of Universal Basic Income | Stats + Stories Episode 287 (REPOST)
What is the best way to support people living in extreme poverty? Could unconditional cash transfers and universal basic income be viable options? How can we know if such programs will work? Today's episode of stats and stories focuses on addressing the needs of people living in extreme poverty...
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Fair Play on the Fairway | Stats + Stories Episode 365
Rory McIlroy was leading the 2025 U.S. Masters golf tournament by two strokes after three rounds. So was his ultimate victory a sure thing? How predictive is a lead after three rounds of a golf tournament for victory after the 4th round? In today's episode of stats and stories, we hit the links…
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Statistical Summer Transportation Safety | Stats + Short Stories Episode 146 (REPOST)
What comes to mind at the start of summer? Backyard barbecues, quality time spent, and long drive. Transportation safety is the topic of this episode of Stats+Stories with guest Joel Greenhouse.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Statistics need Stories to give them meaning. Stories need Statistics to give them credibility. Every Thursday John Bailer & Rosemary Pennington get together with a new, interesting guest to bring you the Statistics behind the Stories and the Stories behind the Statistics.
HOSTED BY
The Stats + Stories Team
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Stats + Stories have?
Stats + Stories currently has 449 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Stats + Stories about?
Statistics need Stories to give them meaning. Stories need Statistics to give them credibility. Every Thursday John Bailer & Rosemary Pennington get together with a new, interesting guest to bring you the Statistics behind the Stories and the Stories behind the Statistics.
How often does Stats + Stories release new episodes?
Stats + Stories publishes regularly with 449 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Stats + Stories?
You can listen to Stats + Stories on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Stats + Stories?
Stats + Stories is created and hosted by The Stats + Stories Team.
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