The media tag has no wiki summary.
9
votes
1answer
320 views
Is cancer a trade off to enable faster evolution?
In an interview on pop-sci magazine "The Scientist", Dr. Robert Austin from Princeton is asserting that:
It’s a tradeoff, he says, for the rapid evolution our species has leveraged to become the ...
1
vote
1answer
301 views
Can the fall of Hostess be mainly attributed to the bakers union? [closed]
I am seeing many different sides of the story on every news outlet. Liberals instantly blame the management and conservatives point fingers at the unions. But few facts are really presented. Can ...
0
votes
1answer
233 views
Were the mother and uncle of Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu arrested?
Wikipedia claims that the mother and uncle were arrested in the case of Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu. However, the main link given there is broken. Is there any alternate reliable source confirming this?
8
votes
0answers
2k views
Did Roger Ailes say “the truth is whatever people will believe” or something substantially similar?
The below image popped up on Facebook apparently alleging that Roger Ailes, president of the Fox News Channel, said:
"The truth" is whatever people will believe.
The peculiar placement of the ...
8
votes
2answers
1k views
Did US President Bill Clinton pay down the national debt by $223 billion in 2000?
CNN has this statement about the Clinton Surplus:
President Clinton announced Wednesday that the federal budget surplus for fiscal year 2000 amounted to at least $230 billion, making it the ...
11
votes
1answer
1k views
Are Fox News viewers more likely to believe misinformation than viewers of other news outlets?
Huffington Post writes:
Fox News viewers are much more likely than others to believe false information about American politics, a new study concludes.
The study, conducted by the University of ...
5
votes
0answers
277 views
Does training while wearing weights improve body performance?
Everybody has heard about training while wearing weights in different parts of your body: ankles, arms, torso, etc.
There are many references in cartoons that treat about Martial arts like the ...
12
votes
1answer
884 views
Were the arrested US citizens who walked into Iran merely “hikers”?
I see that there's another news report on CNN regarding detained U.S. hikers in Iran. It seems that all too frequently the media reports similar stories every time some random "hiker" is jailed in a ...
11
votes
0answers
326 views
Is a photo of Rick Perry's college transcript authentic?
Various major US news outlets are echoing a Huffington Post article titled "Rick Perry's College Transcript: A Lot Of Cs And Ds" including NPR, Fox, and the Des Moines Register.
Because if you ...
8
votes
0answers
586 views
Is a proposal to build an artificial mountain being seriously considered?
Thijs Zonneveld, a former cyclist, made a joke that a 2,000m high artificial mountain should be created in the Netherlands.
Now, the mass media are reporting that it is being seriously considered:
...
14
votes
1answer
8k views
Is it possible to do the things Derren Brown does with just psychology or linguistic suggestion?
Edit2: I'm revising the question again. Please note that I am not talking about card tricks like THIS. I'm talking about specific examples below which are at least portrayed as far more complex, ...
5
votes
0answers
311 views
Does Ferrari cheat at track tests?
The article How Ferrari spins by Chris "Monkey" Harris contains claims that Ferrari has dishonest practices with the press.
How bad has it been? I honestly don't know where to start. Perhaps the ...
18
votes
1answer
861 views
Is quicksand deadly?
A classic movie threat: quicksand that will ensnare you and kill you by drowning.
[Still from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull]
It's in countless movies and TV, but does ...
9
votes
1answer
1k views
Does Baywatch-style CPR work?
It's a common movie scene. Someone falls in a large body of water and drowns, losing consciousness. Our hero rescues the victim, gives 10 seconds of CPR, emits various imprecations to the tone of ...
13
votes
2answers
2k views
Did Evan Longoria save a reporter with bare-hand catch?
Here's what I'm talking about.
There are a lot of opinions whether it's fake or not, I really don't know!
What are the chances that one (even a professional player, let alone common mortals) can ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
Are media reports about squatters' rights accurate?
So a few months ago there was a spout of stories in the UK papers pertaining to squatters, and the fact that they have just been breaking into houses and changing the locks whilst the owners had been ...
16
votes
1answer
460 views
Is banning plastic bags beneficial to the environment?
There's always this big talk about plastic bags, but how much can you compare banning them to other measures?
Bottomline: Is it worth the whole media coverage about this issue, or is it just a ...
16
votes
2answers
2k views
Is the IKEA catalogue being distributed in more prints than the Bible?
According to IKEA
The 2010 edition [of the catalogue] is the world’s third
most printed publication (next to the
Bible and Harry Potter)
But Martin Roth wrote an article in 2002 where he ...
35
votes
2answers
3k views
Is Japan's nuclear disaster “on par” with Chernobyl?
Many news organizations (e.g. CNN, Huffington Post, etc) are referring to the Japan incident as something as severe as Chernobyl, i.e. a nuclear event with International Atomic Energy Agency rating ...
26
votes
1answer
2k views
Did the 1938 radio broadcast of 'The War of the Worlds' lead to mass hysteria?
I've heard it so many times that I considered it a fact.
(Image Source)
In 1938 Orson Welles' radio adaption of H.G.Wells' The War of the World incited a nationwide panic:
All across the ...
18
votes
1answer
974 views
Does dowsing (aka Water Divining) work?
Also known as water divining, the more general term is dowsing. Practitioners claim to be able to detect minerals and even specific objects.
I first became interested in dowsing in my teens, when the ...
14
votes
1answer
444 views
How many of the facts in an average newspaper article are true?
A while ago there was a study that compared the amount of factual mistakes in Wikipedia to the amount of factual mistakes in Britannica.
Are there similar studies that count the average number of ...
