All Questions
11,113
questions
5
votes
2
answers
680
views
Does building roads increase traffic to the same point?
A 2014 Wired article *What's Up With That: Building Bigger Roads Actually Makes Traffic Worse cites two economists:
In 2009, two economists—Matthew Turner of the University of Toronto and Gilles ...
- 167
15
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Does a coal plant "kill more in a few weeks than nuclear has ever killed"?
Director Oliver Stone and Prof. Joshua Goldstein have created a film named "Nuclear Now", arguing in favor of installing more (modern) nuclear power plants to combat climate change and ...
- 2,483
5
votes
1
answer
741
views
Is social media bad for the mental health of youth?
Multiple sources have blamed on social media for having (or potentially having) negative impact on mental state of young people. To name few:
NPR writes
SEATTLE — The public school district in ...
- 6,552
6
votes
1
answer
638
views
Is capsaicin (found in chili peppers) an aphrodisiac?
Various web-sites claim that consuming capsaicin (the chemical found in chili peppers which makes them hot) has an aphrodisiac effect:
From berries.com:
Capsaicin is known to boost testosterone ...
- 177
9
votes
2
answers
9k
views
In the event of a siren warning the public of a gas leak, is it actually advisable to listen to the radio when smelling gas?
The Finnish website pelastustoimi advises to listen to the radio in the event of smelling gas.
If you are already indoors and smell gas
put a wet cloth in front of your mouth and breathe through it
...
- 312
-8
votes
2
answers
402
views
Is COVID-19 no longer a public health emergency of international concern?
The WHO declares:
that COVID-19 is now an established and ongoing health issue which no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).
Is it true that COVID-19 no ...
- 179
7
votes
0
answers
632
views
Does the Chinese Communist Party (or government) enjoy 80% to 90% popular approval in almost all their decisions?
Roland Boer who has written extensively about China, write in his 2021 Springer book Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. A Guide for Foreigners, p. 281:
For Xi, the people’s standpoint (lichang) ...
- 59.7k
0
votes
1
answer
383
views
Do single families of insects have more species than all vertebrates combined?
This article about a caterpillar specialist claims:
There are roughly sixty-five hundred species of mammals, nine thousand species of amphibians, and eleven thousand species of birds. These are what ...
- 119
3
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Does BlackRock own 15% of Fox News?
In a recent YouTube live stream by The Grayzone, the hosts, Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate, stated (~8m:53s) that investment management firms, Vanguard and BlackRock are:
the two largest owners of ...
- 147
10
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Did Malaysia ever stamp "SHIT" on passports ("suspected hippie in transit")?
BBC (2023):
In Malaysia anyone with sufficiently suspect attributes would have the letters SHIT - suspected hippie in transit - stamped in their passports before being deported.
Forbes (2014):
When ...
user62611
2
votes
0
answers
403
views
Does reggaeton generate greater brain activity than classical music?
A 2021 Exploring Your Mind article claims:
A group of neurosurgeons conducted a study that demonstrated intense brain activation when participants listened to reggaeton. In fact, it even surpassed ...
- 45
27
votes
2
answers
8k
views
Did the Golden Gate Bridge 'flatten' under the weight of 300,000 people in 1987?
According to SFGate (and many other sources):
The May 24, 1987 event celebrating the bridge's 50th anniversary was
organized by the "Friends of the Golden Gate Bridge," a group made up
of ...
- 11k
0
votes
0
answers
201
views
Is the UAE sponsoring the RSF coup in Sudan?
According to a MEMO article titled "UAE behind RSF's attempted coup in Sudan, leaked recording says":
In the alleged audio recording, which could not be verified, a man media outlets ...
- 59.7k
34
votes
2
answers
7k
views
Is the Japanese government encouraging the young to consume more alcohol?
In many western countries governments have been issuing advice on how much alcohol should be consumed as medical opinion about safe consumption levels has become more stringent (see NHS advice here). ...
- 56.2k
3
votes
2
answers
554
views
Do handgun rounds liquify tissue and powder bone?
This question asks about whether AR15 rounds pulverize/liquify.
The original quote from a 12 Apr 2023 ABC nightly news segment on the 2023 Louisville Shooting (in which an AR-15 style rifle was used), ...
- 197
24
votes
3
answers
12k
views
Was "L" placed at the beginning of the LGBT acronym because of the AIDS crisis?
Seen in various LGBT documentation spaces online:
This history of the acronym goes back to the last sustained trauma in the LGBT world: the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s and 1990s. ... a more ...
- 44.9k
6
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Did Rossiya 24 show an advertisement for Russian women to marry Chinese men?
A clip floating on various subreddits purports to show that:
Russian State TV now shows advertising for Russian Women to marry Chinese Men. Promising them a better life...
The clip seems to show a ...
- 59.7k
16
votes
0
answers
625
views
Are scammers using AI voice cloning to fake kidnappings?
There have been numerous news reports of scammers using AI voice cloning to trick people into thinking that their kid has been kidnapped:
NY Post
An Arizona mom claims that scammers used AI to clone ...
- 261
0
votes
2
answers
820
views
Does an AR-15 rifle round liquefy tissue and powder bone?
In a 12 Apr 2023 ABC nightly news segment on the 2023 Louisville Shooting (in which an AR-15 style rifle was used), they included a segment of a press conference with Dr Jason Smith, Chief Medical ...
- 197
20
votes
2
answers
7k
views
Did Hitler say that "private enterprise cannot be maintained in a democracy"?
There are a bunch of sources claiming he said it, but the earliest one I was able to find is a 1968 book The Arms of Krupp, which also gives it in German as "privates Unternehmertum könne in der ...
- 59.7k
24
votes
2
answers
6k
views
Did Brené Brown claim her research showed that women are disappointed and disgusted by male vulnerability?
On the website Good Guys 2 Great Men, the author, Steve Horsmon, claims:
Even the research by vulnerability expert Brene Brown confirms the current social conditioning of women to be disappointed and ...
- 6,761
0
votes
1
answer
564
views
Is Whang Od 106 years old, making her the oldest Vogue cover star?
Numerous sources report that Vogue's April 2023 cover star is 106 years old.
Guardian, Indigenous tattooist becomes Vogue’s oldest ever cover star at 106, Apr 2023
An Indigenous tattooist in the ...
- 5,231
3
votes
1
answer
494
views
Do the US have enough gas resources to last about 90 years?
In the 2012 State of the Union Address the then president Obama stated:
We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years
Since the speech was done more than 10 year ago, now ...
- 323
12
votes
4
answers
12k
views
Did Covid vaccines massively increase excess death in Australia in 2022?
From the Infowars article 5162% INCREASE IN EXCESS DEATH! Australian Government Data Shows MASS Vaccine Death Toll
Josh Sigurdson reports on the massive increase in excess death in Australia and ...
- 3,624
1
vote
0
answers
195
views
Did the 1937 single issue magazine "Rising Tide" include the "Rules for Revolution"?
The New York Times 10 July 1970 article Communist ‘Rules’ For Revolt Viewed As Durable Fraud inaccurately states:
The earliest publication of the “rules” turned up in search was in The New World ...
- 105k
10
votes
1
answer
920
views
Is yellow safer than white for center line road markings?
The Random Fact Generator website told me:
By 1955, forty-nine of the U.S. states agreed that state highways should have a white stripe down the middle between cars going in different directions. The ...
- 1,431
8
votes
0
answers
413
views
Does Russia recruit a "large number" of people suffering from HIV and Hepatitis C to fight their current war?
Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, 25 October, 2022:
Russia’s Wagner private military company has started mass recruitment of russian prisoners who are suffering from serious infectious diseases such ...
- 2,329
8
votes
1
answer
824
views
Did Pfizer Australia give its employees different COVID-19 vaccinations to the general public?
A conspiracy-minded Facebook friend recently linked to the (Australian) Therapeutics Goods Administration's Batch release assessment of COVID-19 vaccines.
It lists seven batches of the COMIRNATY ...
- 141k
22
votes
4
answers
6k
views
Did Sweden experience lower all-cause mortality during the pandemic?
Sections of the Australian media have been claiming recently that Sweden experienced lower excess deaths during the pandemic years compared with other countries, including Australia. The implication ...
-5
votes
2
answers
663
views
Are the media headline claims, implying that Smotrich's Palestinian statement was false, justified?
A Google search (2023-03-22) for "Smotrich" occurring within the past week produces:
Bezalel Smotrich - Wikipedia
Top stories:
CNN - Israeli minister says there's 'no such thing as a ...
- 3,952
9
votes
0
answers
252
views
Did John Tesh win 6 Emmys and an AP award for investigative journalism?
The Wikipedia page for John Tesh lists him as having won 6 Emmy's and an "AP award for investigative journalism". This claim is repeated on numerous sites. I cannot find a primary source for ...
13
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Does prostitution in Thailand make up around 10% of its GDP?
There are several sources that make a claim like that, I'm giving some of them:
We don’t do sex work because we are poor, we do sex work to end our poverty
Key sentence in that link:
We are also the ...
- 2,436
2
votes
1
answer
886
views
Is there documented evidence that George Kennan opposed the establishment of NATO?
I have no trouble believing George Kennan opposed NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe; quotes about that are easy to find, e.g. on Wikipedia, using relatively recent thus accessible sources.
On the ...
- 59.7k
4
votes
1
answer
932
views
Does looking at a monitor screen in a room with very low light source damage your eyes?
Suppose a person wants to play computer games at night without turning on the room lights. The only light source in the room is that monitor screen that the person is looking at -- with normal ...
- 159
0
votes
1
answer
769
views
Was the "Chinese spy balloon" a project of the University of Fairbanks to study the weather above the North Pole?
When asked about his take on the balloon shot down that the US government say was a Chinese spy balloon, Seymour Hersh says it was more likely a [federally funded] project of the University of ...
- 59.7k
10
votes
2
answers
4k
views
Is the USA the largest trading partner of Vietnam nowadays?
According to Seymour Hersh, the fall of Saigon was irrelevant (wrt. to containing China etc.) because
We're the largest trading partner of Vietnam now.
By "we" he surely means the USA. Is ...
- 59.7k
1
vote
2
answers
717
views
Did a pro-Ukraine group blow up Nordstream pipeline?
A recent NYT post claims that "Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say". How true is this claim?
- 143
0
votes
0
answers
1k
views
Does rotating a soda can on a table prevent it from fizzing over when opened?
In this scene from Season 6 Episode 7 of Better Call Saul, the character Howard Hamlin shows that one can stop a shaken soda can from exploding when opened by first rotating it vertically while it is ...
1
vote
0
answers
248
views
Did a yacht owned by a Polish company with Ukrainian owners travel from Rostock to Christiansø on September 6-7, 2022?
A number of mainstream German newspapers claimed on March 7 that a likely Ukrainian commando travelling on false passports boarded a yacht registered to a Polish company (but ultimately owned by ...
- 59.7k
39
votes
2
answers
9k
views
Did over 1000 people in the US die of cannabis overdose in 2021?
According to the National Safety Council, in 2021 in the US, 1159 people died of cannabis overdose, of which 1130 of the deaths were preventable:
Is this true?
I'm skeptical because the drug ...
- 105k
39
votes
3
answers
13k
views
Have the Covid-19 vaccines caused more deaths than Covid-19 itself did?
A popular article by Steve Kirsch on his substack discusses the following:
A worldwide Bayesian causal Impact analysis suggests that COVID-19 gene therapy (mRNA vaccine) causes more COVID-19 cases ...
- 3,513
11
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Did United 93 passenger Jeremy Glick call with a cellular phone on 9/11?
In the "September 11 - The New Pearl Harbor" documentary (1:46:45), a claim is made that Jeremy Glick used a cellular phone to make a roughly 20-minute phone call to his wife and mother-in-...
- 213
5
votes
0
answers
431
views
Did Robert Brownlee express a belief that a manhole cover was launched into space by a nuclear test?
According to Snopes:
the above-mentioned Brownlee doesn't believe the metal cap launched into space.
However Business Insider states:
Robert Brownlee, an astrophysicist who designed the nuclear ...
- 105k
12
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Is the honey bee apocalypse real?
In 2013 Time magazine wrote
A World Without Bees: The Price We’ll Pay If We Don’t Figure Out What’s Killing the Honeybee.
In 2021 New York Post writes
Why the honey bee ‘apocalypse’ is based on a ...
- 6,552
44
votes
1
answer
10k
views
Has 90% of ice around Antarctica disappeared in less than a decade?
According to CNN, 90% of ice around Antarctica has disappeared in less than a decade.
In the video, CNN Climate Correspondent, Bill Weir states:
... the ice around the continent was growing. In 2014,...
- 105k
2
votes
0
answers
327
views
Were Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers asking for reduced liability invoking the unprecedented testing schedule?
According to RebelNews, Canadian MP Anthony Housefather said
It's because these documents were signed at the beginning of the pandemic when everybody was desperate for vaccines, when companies were ...
- 59.7k
11
votes
0
answers
2k
views
Is the Greek Orthodox church worth 700 billion Euros?
This Wikipedia list puts the Greek Orthodox church's net worth at 700B Euros in 2011 (about 974B USD), above any branch of the Catholic church or other religion. Its source is France 24, but I am not ...
- 210
0
votes
0
answers
329
views
Can an experiment done on casual cannabis users provide evidence for the risk of psychosis in long term users?
There is an episode of BBC Horizon with the title Cannabis: Miracle Medicine or Dangerous Drug?, presented by Dr Javid Abdelmoneim.
During the documentary Abdelmoneim meets Dr Amir Englund, a ...
- 323
-2
votes
1
answer
314
views
Is the video of a person reducing the tremor cause by Parkinson with cannabis showed in a BBC documentary true or false? [closed]
There is an episode of BBC Horizon with the title Cannabis: Miracle Medicine or Dangerous Drug?, presented by Dr Javid Abdelmoneim.
At mins 16:40 the presenter shows a youtube video of a person ...
- 323
36
votes
1
answer
8k
views
Did the residents of Aneyoshi survive the 2011 tsunami thanks to the warnings of a stone marker?
According to Forbes:
In Aneyoshi, a small village on Japan’s northeastern coast, all the inhabitants survived the tsunami of 2011 by climbing to higher ground, following the warnings of a stone ...
- 11k