Significance

When an Instagram influencer asked a rhetorical question about probability, statistician and crochet fan Sarah Lotspeich could not resist answering it I often find inspiration through social media – cute cat photos, yummy recipes, and inspiring travel locales. I have also crocheted for most of my life, fancying myself not only a statistician but a stati-stitchin, and I often find free patterns on social media, too.

Women’s football has rocketed in popularity, in terms of audience and players. But should the men’s and women’s games have distinct statistical models? Bend it like Beckham was a 2002 movie directed by Gurinder Chadha about an 18-year-old British Indian girl living in West London, passionate about football – and especially about her idol, David Beckham.

Statisticians can apply their trade anywhere it’s needed, bringing benefits to friends, family and the wider world. Find out how one statistician and father used his training to help improve therapy for autistic children like his daughter As a parent, few things hit harder than being told that your child might never be able to function independently in society. For me and my wife, this happened back in 2022 when our youngest, then two years old, was diagnosed with level 2 autism.

Significance magazine invites submissions for a special issue dedicated to the work, perspectives, and priorities of statisticians in South and South-East Asia, including but not restricted to India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Founded in 1978, the UK charity Teaching Statistics Trust (TST) runs an annual lecture series for teachers of statistics in secondary schools, colleges and the early years of university. Rachel Hilliam, professor statistics at the Open University, is the TST lecturer for 2025-26. Having worked as a statistician for many years, I am very aware of the anxiety the word “statistics” can provoke. That fear factor is one of the biggest barriers we face and we need to change the narrative around data.

Statistical evaluation of technology is nothing new – but the level of autonomy that AI models seek is. How can the statistical professions adapt to a world powered by AI? Here’s why 2026 could be the year of the AI phronestician… Data scientists and statisticians are no longer needed. The sexiest job of the 21st century is out and all you need is an API key to have your own 24-hour on-call data scientist.

Data scientists don’t always grasp the core statistical concept of sampling and its superpowers in the workplace Some years ago, I had the chance to code-review a data pipeline, as an effort to reduce the 23-hour running time. The pipeline was complex, creating on every run a new sophisticated set of treated and control users for comparison, but it wasn’t that hard to find some room for optimisation.

In a crisis, do you gamble on fast but imperfect data – or wait for accuracy that might come too late? When the clock is ticking, how do statisticians balance speed with the reliability decision-makers depend on? What happens behind the scenes when statisticians are asked to deliver in days insights that once took months? A Royal Statistical Society initiative seeks to help statisticians forced to make compromises Data is key to informing decision-making.

Football fans say a team plays better in their home stadium, thanks to the familiarity of the environment and the quantity of fans cheering them on. The August 2021 issue of Significance published an article entitled No fans, no home advantage? which examined this phenomenon and the impact of Covid restrictions in the 2020/21 season.

Chris Dalla Riva writes about pop music and data, and his debut book, Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves is reviewed in the November 2025 issue of Significance. We asked him more about his research and the best places for fellow music-and-stats fans to dig around As I was going through school, I always felt there was this idea implicitly expressed that you either liked math and science or you liked English and history.