Category: Series

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More or Less: Behind the Stats - The digital ?robots? unlocking medical data

Big medical datasets pose a serious problem. Thousands of patients? health records are an enormous risk to personal privacy. But they also contain an enormous opportunity ? they could show us how to provide better treatments or more effective health policies.

A system called OpenSAFELY has been designed to solve this problem, with the help of a computer code ?robot?.

Professor Ben Goldacre, director of the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science at the University of Oxford, explains how it works. Presenter: Tim Harford Producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Janet Staples Sound mix: Hal Haines Editor: Charlotte McDonald

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The Indicator from Planet Money - Chocolate, Lyft’s typo and India’s election bonds

It's Indicators of the Week — our weekly look under the hood of our global economy. Today we look at why cocoa prices are soaring, whether India's electoral bonds are bad for democracy and how a typo sent Lyft shares (briefly) soaring.

Related:
Cocoa prices hit a 47-year high before Valentine's Day
Can India become the next high-tech hub? (Apple / Spotify)
Lyft going public: The dual-class share dilemma
Big donors and pay-to-play politics

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The Indicator from Planet Money - Why banks are fighting changes to an anti-redlining program

In 2023, The Federal Reserve and other banking regulators announced they were making changes to how they grade banks on servicing local communities. This all stems from a 1977 law called the Community Reinvestment Act, which was designed to encourage banks to better meet the needs of moderate and low-income borrowers. However, major banking trade groups weren't too excited about the new rules and filed a lawsuit against the banking regulators last week.

Today on the show, we explain the history of racist housing policies in the United States and how that history informs the banks' fight with the government today.

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The Indicator from Planet Money - How Egypt’s military is dragging down its economy

Egypt's economy is facing its worst crisis in decades. The situation could further destabilize the Middle East if it goes unresolved. Now, the International Monetary Fund is working with Egyptian leadership to figure out another deal for a multi-billion dollar loan ... but will it be enough? Today, we look at how Egypt has fallen into economic crisis and whether its economy is too big to fail.

Related episodes:
What could convince Egypt to take in Gaza's refugees? (Apple / Spotify)

Red Sea tensions spell trouble for global supply chains (Apple / Spotify)

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

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