Category: News
Statsketball is Back: Bolster Your Brackets with the Power of Statistics
January 30, 2018
“I have warned many times about the guaranteed dangers of betting with your heart instead of your head…but every once in a while you get a fair chance to have it both ways, and the annual NCAA Basketball Tournament is one of them.” —Hunter S Thomspon Each year as March approaches, basketball fans hustle to...
Beyond Barometers: How Statistics Helps Predict the Weather
January 25, 2018
No need for fortune tellers to predict the weather, we’ve got the power of statistics. In fact, meteorologists rely on one thing statisticians know a lot about—applying rigorous scientific techniques to extract information and knowledge from data. Data first became crucial to predicting the weather in the mid-1800s, with the invention of the telegraph. The...
The Role of Statistics in Human Rights Advocacy
January 19, 2018
We celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. Remembering his civil rights activism made us think about the many ways statistics contributes to modern human rights advocacy. Statistician Megan Price is a great example of how powerful statistics can be in addressing social justice and human rights violations. Price works for the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG), a non-profit,...
From Spreadsheets to Headlines: A Day in the Life of Data Journalist Ryan Struyk
January 12, 2018
What is a data journalist? If you ask Ryan Struyk, data reporter and mobile producer at CNN Politics, it’s someone who can turn a data set into breaking news. Data reporters explain important issues, but instead of using human sources to break the news, they work with data sets. This is Statistics spoke with Ryan...
What’s Going On In This Graph
January 09, 2018
This is Statistics is excited to share monthly “What’s Going On In This Graph?” features from the New York Times Learning Network. Each month of the academic year, the Learning Network shares an infographic, stripped of its contextual information, from a recent New York Times article. It’s up to you to use your math, statistics...
More Good News: Statistician Among Top Jobs in 2018
January 05, 2018
If your New Year’s resolution happens to be finding a job in statistics, you’re in luck. With fast technological advancements in areas like Artificial Intelligence and expected job market growth in the first quarter of 2018, employers are starting the year looking for candidates with technical and data analytics skills. Being a statistician means having...
Happy Holidays!
December 27, 2017
Thank you for joining us this year in our celebration of statistics and the amazing opportunities it offers. From competitions like Statsketball and the Police Data Challenge, to the Joint Statistical Meeting, our “What Kind of Statistician Could You Be?” quiz, and our partnership with The New York Times Learning Network to create “What’s Going On In This...
Holiday Roundup: This is Statistics Most Popular Posts of 2017
December 21, 2017
This year brought a wide range of content on the This is Statistics news page. Over the past 12 months, we offered quizzes, contests, statistician profiles, and more. Of all the posts authored here, here are the most popular from 2017. Let’s look back at the posts you don’t want to miss this year. 1. 2017...
Creating a Solution with Statistics, One E.Coli Colony at a Time
December 14, 2017
Ana Humphrey, a junior at T. C. Williams High School in Alexandria, VA, is not your average student. As a national science fair winner, founder of two organizations, and creator of an innovative, low-cost approach to water testing, Ana is a girl on a mission. Along the way, her accomplishments have been powered by statistical...
What’s Going On In This Graph?
December 12, 2017
ASA and The New York Times Learning Network released a brand new “What’s Going On In This Graph?” this morning. Each month of the academic year (September to May), this ongoing feature shares a graph from a recent New York Times article, but stripped of its contextual information. Then it’s up to you to use...