The Story in Pictures
The strip is credited to Tom Gauld and occupies his regular cartoon slot. The title itself invokes the language of statistics by referring to excluding an outlier from a study, positioning the panel within a science-literate frame.
The cartoon ran alongside other New Scientist coverage on the site, including reporting that T. rex teeth indicate the enormous predatory dinosaur was warm-blooded, stories about Earth becoming less dusty, an account of an asteroid that hit the moon and flung rocks 120 kilometres from the crater, and satellite-based analysis showing how ice sheets are losing mass. Those items formed the surrounding editorial context for the weekly cartoon on the site that day.
Gauld’s contribution continues the publication’s regular inclusion of single-panel cartoons in its cultural and science pages. The captioned title makes a direct nod to research practice, using a technical phrase as its hook. For readers following the cartoons, the 16 September panel adds to the series of weekly observations that intersect with scientific topics and newsroom coverage.
Future weekly installments will continue to appear in the same slot, maintaining the cartoonist’s presence alongside New Scientist’s reporting and features. The 16 September 2026 panel is the latest example of that ongoing placement.
