The media may harp on statistical noise like this, but it is essentially meaningless for investors.

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Mechner said that in theory it should, but in practice execution data included a huge amount of fundamental statistical noise.

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The probability of statistical noise, as I discussed above, was quite high.

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After that, "It's all just statistical noise, " he adds.

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There is almost as much statistical noise in the wettability of the paper and the leaf from one bag to the next as there is in dissolution rates, and small changes in manufacture usually matter more than anything the consumer on the teabag side can control.

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The mathematical sciences prize was awarded to David L. Donoho for his "contributions to modern mathematical statistics and in particular the development of optimal algorithms for statistical estimation in the presence of noise and of efficient techniques for sparse representation and recovery in large data-sets, " the committee said.

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Using statistical means, Dr. Donoho developed algorithms that would diminish noise and interference "by recovering or reconstructing the original signal as much as possible, " Prof.

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"The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other (cancer) risks like people's lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations, " he said.

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