Most industries tap into big data these days – meaning more and more jobs are opening up in this field. Here’s some background on the skills and qualities you’d use as a modern big data professional.

How should we address growing concerns about information security without denying society the benefits big data can bring?

Big data studies often use easily available user-generated data from the Internet. Researchers assume that this data offers a window into reality. It doesn’t necessarily.

Science is in a reproducibility crisis. This is driven in part by invalid statistical analyses that happen long after the data are collected – the opposite of how things are traditionally done.

What can be done to prevent employers from rejecting individuals based on concern about future illnesses? Currently, nothing.

Modern biological research relies on big data analytics. Vast reservoirs of memory and powerful computing ability mean machines find patterns and make meta-analyses and even predictions for scientists.

Analyzing big data sets holds the promise of big insights. But the axiom “garbage in, garbage out” is particularly apt, since conclusions can be only as good as the raw data itself.

Collect all the data you want, but if you can’t figure out what you’re looking at, it’s useless. Topologists look for spatial relationships to figure out what the data can tell us.

Police forces across the country now have access to surveillance technologies that were recently available only to national intelligence services. The digitization of bias and abuse of power followed.

For decades, advertisers and marketers struggled to predict the consumption of leisure products such as movies and books. Now, big data reveals how people really spend their leisure time.