Topic description and stories

Screenshot of the BBC News website via Unsplash

Uncertainty about facts can be reported without damaging public trust in news – study

23 Mar 2020

A series of experiments – including one on the BBC News website – finds the use of numerical ranges in news reports helps us grasp the uncertainty of...

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121026_spegielhalter-graphic

How risky is your breakfast?

27 Oct 2012

Understanding how the numbers add up in relation to risk can help us deal with our own uncertainty, as David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor for the...

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Bike in flood

The making of a National Risk Register

26 Oct 2012

Why does Britain need a National Risk Register (NRR)? To understand what the risks are and how to improve resilience, explains John Tesh, the Cabinet...

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Amy Donovan

Volcanoes: risk, uncertainty and the next big eruption

23 Oct 2012

As earthquake experts worldwide reflect on an Italian court’s ruling to convict scientists on manslaughter charges for failing to predict the L’...

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Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake

Ounce of prevention, pound of cure

09 Oct 2012

Working with humanitarian organisations in Haiti, Cambridge researchers have found that an information system they designed to track how regions...

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Car manufacturing

Crash, crisis, calamity: system shock in a globalised world

01 Oct 2012

Threats that cause supply chains and other networks to break down can cascade through today’s interconnected world of social, economic and financial...

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David Spiegelhalter

Risk and uncertainty

01 Oct 2012

This month, the University of Cambridge will be profiling research that addresses risk and uncertainty. To begin, Professor David Spiegelhalter...

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UN Geneva

When the talking stops

22 Jun 2010

From the collapse of the Doha Development Agenda to the ongoing impasse over climate change, the failure of governments to achieve real progress at...

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Fabric of folly - weekly unique visitors

Risk initiatives seek to challenge the stats we’re in

21 Jan 2010

Two different projects which aim to improve our understanding of the nature of, and statistical realities behind, health scares, natural disasters...

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Clouds 1 - free to use

Unclouding uncertainty in climate modelling

01 May 2009

New understanding of the physics of clouds is helping to model both climate change and the impact of volcanic eruptions and wild fires.

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Discarded Teenagers

Key to regulation of puberty discovered

11 Dec 2008

A team of scientists from the University of Cambridge and the University of Cukurova in Turkey has taken a major step to understanding how the brain...

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Uncertainty

Living with uncertainty

01 May 2008

Assessing the chance of something happening or not happening confronts us all the time. A new programme led by David Spiegelhalter, the Winton...

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