All Questions
10,610
questions
6
votes
1
answer
287
views
Did a Wisconsin school file sexual harassment complaints over pronoun usage?
The New York Post claims
A Wisconsin school district has filed sexual harassment complaints against three middle schoolers for calling a classmate by a wrong pronoun.
They cite fox17.com as source, ...
3
votes
1
answer
290
views
Does watching pornography increase sexual performance in women?
I am referring to these lines:
A recent study reported that increasing porn use is linked to
decreased sexual performance in men and increased sexual performance
in women.
Big Think - Is watching ...
0
votes
0
answers
194
views
Can masturbation cure insomnia?
I've come across the claim that masturbation can cure insomnia at several places on the internet, including:
Episode 1 of The Principles of Pleasure, which focuses on female orgasm.
a Health Central ...
5
votes
1
answer
168
views
Did Portugal attempt to maintain control over Macau?
In this video, Are Hong Kong and Macau Countries?, educational YouTuber CGP Grey mentions (at 3m16s) that Portugal said they had a right to Macau forever, but the UN stepped in and said no to them.
...
8
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Did Russia's parliament, Duma, propose invading Poland in 2022?
Twitter user @sentdefender, with >160K followers, recently tweeted
The Russian State Duma has proposed that after the Invasion of Ukraine, that Poland be Invaded and denazified next due to their ...
30
votes
2
answers
6k
views
In 1936, did brothers Mark and David Ferrow transition?
The story of transgender brothers Mark and David Ferrow has become popular on Tumblr and Twitter in recent weeks. It claims
In 1934-1936, trans brothers Mark and David Ferrow of Yarmouth, UK both ...
30
votes
4
answers
14k
views
Was Ukraine planning an attack in Donbas/Crimea prior to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine?
Quote by Putin in today's Victory Day speech:
“In December last year, we proposed the conclusion of an agreement on security guarantees. Russia called on the West to enter an honest dialogue, in ...
9
votes
1
answer
568
views
Did Louis Pasteur admit on his deathbed "Bernard [the inventor of terrain theory] was right"?
On many 'health' sites defending terrain theory (the theory that the state of the body, not just germs, is the primal factor for disease development) one finds quotes that Louis Pasteur is said to ...
-6
votes
1
answer
215
views
Does the Dyson hairdryer measure temperature more than 40 times per second?
According to its product page https://www.dyson.co.uk/hair-care/dyson-supersonic/dyson-supersonic-overview the Dyson Supersonic hair dryer has the following feature
Unlike some others, the Dyson ...
5
votes
2
answers
530
views
Were evangelicals rallied around abortion in 1978, as a substitute for segregation?
The June 20, 2019 edition of NPR’s “Throughline” podcast “examines how the issue of abortion became a defining political issue for evangelicals.”
In it, the hosts talk about evangelicals initially ...
2
votes
0
answers
545
views
+100
Did a Pfizer subcontractor compromise the integrity of some data in Pfizer's Covid vaccine trial?
According to Paul D Thacker in this article published in the BMJ, a whistleblower working for a subcontractor in Texas (Ventavia Research Group) reported a number of problems, and was then immediately ...
1
vote
1
answer
343
views
Has Biden averaged 550,000 new jobs per month as president?
I just saw on President Biden's Facebook page that he's averaged roughly 550,000 new jobs per month, more than double than the next highest, Bill Clinton. A lot of the people in the comments are ...
28
votes
4
answers
10k
views
Is the abortion hanger a myth?
Recently protesters against the overturning of U.S.abortion law have often shown the “coat hanger” as the symbolic image of illegal abortion.
An extract from Wikipedia reads:
In a letter to The New ...
7
votes
1
answer
622
views
Did recently released internal Pfizer documentation show a much lower efficacy rate for the vaccine than previously claimed?
Background
A search on Twitter for Pfizer currently shows many people talking about a supposed recent release of documentation (tens of thousands of pages) from Pfizer. A simple Internet search shows ...
1
vote
1
answer
719
views
Is the woman in this interview the same one in this viral photo of the bombing of the Mariupol hospital?
Some sources (which I find unreliable) are claiming that, the unnamed pregnant Ukranian who were injured in most famous photo of Mariupol Hospital Bombing is the same woman as Mariana Vishegirskava, ...
7
votes
0
answers
310
views
Do introverts and extroverts respond to dopamine and acetylcholine differently?
This Mind Brain Ed blog article is an example of one that quotes the book Quiet kids: Help your introverted child succeed in an extroverted world. by Christine Fonseca in claiming that introverts and ...
22
votes
3
answers
12k
views
In the US, were clover lawns common until a supposed smear campaign by Roundup?
Then in the 1950s a chemical company, to advance a weed killer, used a public relations campaign to declare white clover a weed.
http://americangardening.net/public-relations-campaign-attacks-clover ....
29
votes
5
answers
13k
views
Can Russia's Poseidon nuclear underwater drone create a 500 meter tidal wave?
According to TheTimes.co.uk, "Russian ‘nuclear tsunami’ will wipe out Britain, Kremlin-backed media threatens"
In his Sunday evening primetime show, the Channel One anchor Dmitry Kiselyov ...
3
votes
1
answer
383
views
Is (or was) the air pollution in Beijing worse than "what the first responders at ground zero on 9/11 were breathing"?
...I'd rather spend a week in Chernobyl (maybe not right now) than say a week in Beijing when the air quality is literally so bad it's worse than what the first responders at ground zero on 9/11 were ...
3
votes
1
answer
378
views
Does this article present an accurate summary of the (in)effectiveness of masks at preventing Covid-19 transmission? [closed]
I realize the question of effectiveness of masks in preventing Covid has already been asked here several times, but no recent one seems to have a conclusive answer. This article from JustFacts (I know ...
6
votes
0
answers
357
views
Is dandruff an indicator of an "unhealthy scalp?" Can a shampoo cure the underlying problem?
In this video (sponsored by Head and Shoulders) by Veritasium entitled "What Actually Causes Dandruff?", you can hear Dr. Jim Schwartz a Research Fellow at Head & Shoulders say:
The ...
3
votes
0
answers
106
views
Did a tree grow inside a man's lung after he inhaled a seed? [duplicate]
https://www.newshub.co.nz/world/fir-tree-in-lung-surgeon-stands-by-his-story-2009041623
The Russian surgeon who says he found a fir tree growing inside a patient’s lungs is standing by a claim that ...
11
votes
0
answers
458
views
To what extent does the reported phenomenon of needle spiking in nightclubs and bars exist?
There have been widespread reports in the UK of "needle spiking," where a person, usually a woman, claims to have been jabbed with something in a bar.
This has received increasing attention, ...
41
votes
1
answer
9k
views
Did the government of Florida reject all K-5 maths books, except for ones issued by a specific ex-employer of a colleague of the current governor?
This article alleges that the only books approved by Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education were published by "Accelerate Learning", a company which happens to have ...
17
votes
3
answers
12k
views
Is it theoretically possible to sail from north east Russia to Pakistan in a straight line?
I found this map from this substack, World in motion:
Rohan Chabukswar and Kushal Mukherjee, a pair of researchers at the
United Technologies Research Center in Cork, plotted the route in 2018
in ...
-3
votes
1
answer
694
views
John Nash quote from A Beautiful Mind
Did John Nash actually said the following?
Alicia: How big is the universe?
Nash: Infinite.
Alicia: How do you know?
Nash: I know because all the data indicates it's infinite.
Alicia: But it hasn't ...
14
votes
1
answer
743
views
Is the current crisis in the Sri Lankan economy caused by a decision to mandate organic farming?
The Sri Lankan economy is currently having something of a major crisis. This BBC report points out they are about to default on major international loan payments:
Sri Lanka crisis: Government ...
32
votes
4
answers
10k
views
Do women get cheaper car insurance?
My coworker told me women pay less car insurance than men. So I did some research and found some sites proving that.
For example:
According to How Age And Gender Affect Car Insurance Rates, women tend ...
7
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Was 10-year old Australian girl assigned homework to discuss erections and ejaculations with her father?
The Paradise writes
Australian MP: 10-year-old School Girls Assigned Homework to Ask Their Dads About “Erections and Ejaculation”
Original clip about the matter can be viewed on channel claiming to ...
10
votes
2
answers
801
views
Did textbooks rejected by the Florida DoE contain social-emotional learning or critical race theory?
The Florida department of Education recently claimed to have rejected a number of mathematics textbooks because, the department claimed, they contained elements of Common Core, critical race theory, ...
22
votes
3
answers
8k
views
Was ape tool use "well known and not the least bit controversial" in 1735?
Before Jane Goodall's discoveries in the 1960s, it had been widely asserted/believed that Man was the only animal that made and used tools.
However, Frans de Waal (2016) states that in 1735,
Ape tool ...
7
votes
0
answers
393
views
Is the number of "ghost guns" in the US increasing?
The White House and media have recently claimed the following:
Law enforcement officers across the country increasingly find there is no way to trace certain guns they recover from crime scenes. [...
18
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Has there ever been documented human individual producing both kinds of sex cells?
UCSB Science Line (University of California, Santa Barbara, scientist q/a) claims that:
Long before we are born, the same gonads either become testes, if the embryo has a Y chromosome, or ovaries if ...
13
votes
0
answers
543
views
Does California have a dress code for drivers?
Many "crazy law" sources claim that California motor vehicle law contains a bizarre sartorial proscription.
On CNN.com, the article "Do you know why I pulled you over?" by Craig ...
4
votes
1
answer
610
views
Did Konrad Adenauer claim that Europe and Asia encounter at the Elbe?
According to James Hawes1,
Konrad Adenauer, its first postwar chancellor and founding father, made Westbindung (“binding to the West”) the heart of West German politics. Adenauer came from the deeply ...
2
votes
0
answers
165
views
Were Texas & Florida Hiding COVID-19 Data? [closed]
I remember reading that Texas and Florida (which have some high population density cities (and especially Florida with a high percentage of elderly, and hence at risk population) were not comparable ...
2
votes
0
answers
282
views
Does Elon Musk's Starlink system play a significant role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
The DW article Ukraine is using Elon Musk's Starlink for drone strikes about the use of Starlink to provide internet in Ukraine is suggesting that it is playing a role in, e.g., the way president ...
30
votes
2
answers
9k
views
Did Henry Kissinger say this about forced vaccinations?
I found a quote online in the form of a photo from what looks like some newspaper:
The photo contains an alleged quote from Henry Kissinger's speech to the WHO Council on Eugenics on February 25, ...
1
vote
1
answer
613
views
Does Chernobyl require active cooling to avert a catastrophe?
In the BBC article, Inside Chernobyl: We stole Russian fuel to prevent catastrophe you can find this
"If we had lost power, it could have been catastrophic," Oleksandr explained. "...
18
votes
2
answers
6k
views
Did the USA increase oil imports from Russia after the Ukraine invasion?
According to Zhao Lijian of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China (RDCY)
[...] Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Mikhail Popov said, in a contrasting ...
8
votes
0
answers
269
views
Did NFL player Brian Bosworth sell anti-Boz t-shirts to Denver Broncos fans?
NFL player/loudmouth Brian Bosworth had a well-publicized feud with John Elway and the Denver Broncos upon joining the league in 1988:
The scene at Mile High Stadium for my first game against Elway ...
4
votes
0
answers
351
views
Were there YouTube ads calling on Russian citizens to disrupt rail routes into Ukraine?
An address from Roskomnadzor states "Earlier it became known that YouTube video hosting users are broadcasting commercials with calls to disable the railway communications of the Russian ...
7
votes
1
answer
694
views
Does Ukraine have more tanks now than it did at the beginning of the invasion? [closed]
During a war, one may expect tank counts for both sides to go decrease (i.e. as they engage in combat and are destroyed).
MSNBC reports Forbes stating:
The Ukrainian army has more tanks now than when ...
3
votes
0
answers
295
views
Did Percy Bysshe Shelley take credit for work done by Mary Shelley?
This is going to be a rather unorthodox question by me, as I can't fully legitimize the claim about to be questioned, but today, in conversing with a colleague of mine, the Shelleys popped up in ...
7
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Did the US government officially spend $41m to make Milosevic lose the 2000 elections?
A 2004 article in the Guardian by the late Ian Traynor says:
Officially, the US government spent $41m (£21.7m) organising and funding the year-long operation to get rid of Milosevic from October 1999....
3
votes
0
answers
521
views
Did a "KUB-BLA" AI powered "suicide" drone fly into Ukraine?
The Daily Star (a not particularly reputable source) has reported that a so-called AI-based "Suicide Drone" has been spotted in Ukraine. (Please excuse all the click-bait. The website is ...
36
votes
3
answers
9k
views
Did "fossil-fuel pollution [kill] three times as many people as COVID-19 did" in 2020?
Bill McKibben writes for The New Yorker in a March 18, 2022 article titled "In a World on Fire, Stop Burning Things" (emphasis added):
Our species depends on combustion; it made us human, ...
0
votes
1
answer
795
views
Was phrenology taught in schools in Nazi Germany?
I was watching Europa Europa (1990). 66 minute into the film, there is a scene which depicts how German students were indoctrinated with phrenology – which is an abhorrent pseudoscience, in my opinion....
4
votes
0
answers
200
views
Is it true that the Bennington College endowment is low because they declined donations to maintain academic independence?
Some (possibly dubious) college Q&A web sites (e.g. this one) make the claim that
Bennington has a paltry endowment of $3.5 million, the result of a historical philosophy - now recognized by its ...
4
votes
0
answers
278
views
Was the Chinese ship Da Cui Yun carrying materials for building WMD?
Chinese ship carrying suspected cargo to Pakistan allowed to leave, equipment held back
DRDO confirms Chinese ship India stopped was carrying nuclear-capable equipment to Pakistan
The above article ...