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More or Less

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Tim Harford explains the numbers and statistics in the news and in life

Tim Harford explains the numbers and statistics in the news and in life.

More or Less: Horoscope Health

Factual

Signs of the zodiac.

19/06/2015

Horoscope Health

BBC World Service - More or Less, Horoscope Health

Can your horoscope predict which diseases you will develop?

Can your horoscope predict which diseases you will develop? And does cricket’s Duckworth-Lewis method need to evolve?

Can your horoscope predict which diseases you’ll develop? Recent media reports say so – and the claim’s based on a study by scientists from the prestigious Columbia University. More or Less takes a closer look, and hears from its lead author, Dr Nicholas Tatonetti.

Duckworth Lewis
The Duckworth-Lewis method, to most, is a mathematical mystery which has been helping sort out rain affected cricket matches for more than a decade. But it has come under fire after the method set England an impossible target of 34 runs off 13 balls in their rain affected one day match with New Zealand. Needless to say England didn’t win and captain, Eoin Morgan, said that the method needed to be looked at given the way the game has evolved. But has the game changed so much that the maths behind the Duckworth-Lewis method needs to change.

(Photo: Zodiac Signs. Credit: Shutterstock)

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