diff --git a/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/MathUtils.java b/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/MathUtils.java
index 209588fff..395326d15 100755
--- a/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/MathUtils.java
+++ b/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/MathUtils.java
@@ -714,7 +714,31 @@ public class MathUtils {
         return getQScoreOrderStatistic(reads, offsets, (int)Math.floor(reads.size()/2.));
     }
 
+    /** A utility class that computes on the fly average and standard deviation for a stream of numbers.
+     * The number of observations does not have to be known in advance, and can be also very big (so that
+     * it could overflow any naive summation-based scheme or cause loss of precision).
+     * Instead, adding a new number <code>observed</code>
+     * to a sample with <code>add(observed)</code> immediately updates the instance of this object so that
+     * it contains correct mean and standard deviation for all the numbers seen so far. Source: Knuth, vol.2
+     * (see also e.g. http://www.johndcook.com/standard_deviation.html for online reference).
+     */
+    public static class RunningAverage {
+        private double mean = 0.0;
+        private double s = 0.0;
+        private long obs_count = 0;
 
+        public void add(double obs) {
+            obs_count++;
+            double oldMean = mean;
+            mean += ( obs - mean ) / obs_count; // update mean
+            s += ( obs - oldMean ) * ( obs - mean );
+        }
+
+        public double mean() { return mean; }
+        public double stddev() { return Math.sqrt(s/(obs_count - 1)); }
+        public long observationCount() { return obs_count; }
+    }
+    
     //
     // useful common utility routines
     //
diff --git a/java/test/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/MathUtilsUnitTest.java b/java/test/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/MathUtilsUnitTest.java
index b6c5d6720..d74e09128 100755
--- a/java/test/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/MathUtilsUnitTest.java
+++ b/java/test/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/MathUtilsUnitTest.java
@@ -123,5 +123,20 @@ public class MathUtilsUnitTest extends BaseTest {
         Assert.assertTrue(BigFiveAlpha.containsAll(FiveAlpha));
         Assert.assertTrue(FiveAlpha.containsAll(BigFiveAlpha));
     }
+
+    /** Tests that we correctly compute mean and standard deviation from a stream of numbers */
+    @Test
+    public void testRunningAverage() {
+        logger.warn("Executing testRunningAverage");
+
+        int [] numbers = {1,2,4,5,3,128,25678,-24};
+        MathUtils.RunningAverage r = new MathUtils.RunningAverage();
+
+        for ( int i = 0 ; i < numbers.length ; i++ ) r.add((double)numbers[i]);
+
+        Assert.assertEquals(r.observationCount(),(long)numbers.length);
+        Assert.assertTrue(r.mean()- 3224.625 < 2e-10 );
+        Assert.assertTrue(r.stddev()-9072.6515881128 < 2e-10);
+    }
     
 }
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