All Questions
10,791
questions
21
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 ....
- 1,272
29
votes
5
answers
14k
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 ...
- 27.7k
3
votes
1
answer
483
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 ...
- 7,080
3
votes
1
answer
424
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 ...
- 327
6
votes
0
answers
414
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 ...
- 27.7k
3
votes
0
answers
119
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 ...
- 1
11
votes
0
answers
590
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, ...
- 4,350
42
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 ...
- 15.8k
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 ...
- 1,753
-3
votes
1
answer
808
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 ...
- 105
14
votes
1
answer
789
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 ...
- 55k
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 ...
- 3,386
7
votes
1
answer
2k
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 ...
- 4,895
10
votes
2
answers
837
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, ...
- 1,220
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 ...
- 689
7
votes
0
answers
446
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. [...
- 171
19
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 ...
- 292
13
votes
0
answers
1k
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 ...
- 3,407
4
votes
1
answer
760
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
182
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 ...
- 249
2
votes
1
answer
730
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 ...
- 281
32
votes
2
answers
10k
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, ...
- 560
3
votes
1
answer
680
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. "...
- 27.7k
19
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 ...
- 27.7k
8
votes
1
answer
638
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 ...
- 379
4
votes
0
answers
377
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
729
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 ...
- 253
3
votes
0
answers
346
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 ...
- 484
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....
- 53k
3
votes
0
answers
551
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 ...
- 155
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, ...
- 9,774
0
votes
1
answer
956
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....
- 117
4
votes
0
answers
245
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 ...
- 809
5
votes
0
answers
294
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 ...
- 1,114
48
votes
1
answer
8k
views
Has a mole stored over a thousand earthworms in its underground larder?
On the wikipedia article for moles, I found some remarkable assertions:
Because their saliva contains a toxin that can paralyze earthworms, moles are able to store their still-living prey for later ...
- 562
31
votes
1
answer
5k
views
Is canthaxanthin used in salmon farming toxic to human health?
Founder of Sea Shepherd and co-founder of Greenpeace, "Captain" Paul Watson (captain in what, I don't know) stated that
Farmed Salmon is Poison
70% of salmon produced worldwide is farmed,
...
- 2,606
4
votes
1
answer
739
views
Is the Omicron variant of COVID-19 milder than previous strains?
It is widely reported that the Omicron variant is much less dangerous than previous COVID-19 strains. Is there good scientific evidence to back this up or can the difference in hospitalization rates ...
- 175
7
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Did Jiang Zemin write an unpublished memoir?
It's been claimed in connection with the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade that:
In February 2011 The Sunday Times published an article stating that an unpublished memoir by former ...
- 53k
9
votes
0
answers
203
views
Are today's vegetables so much nutrient poor compared to vegetables from many years ago? [duplicate]
On the web there is plenty of material like this one claiming that the vegetables we buy today are much less nutritious than vegetables from 40/70/100 years ago.
8 oranges today have the same ...
- 191
11
votes
1
answer
489
views
During the disintegration of the Soviet Union, was there a surge of child allergies in Tajikistan because people hoarded soap?
The Hesitant U.S. Rescue of the Soviet Economy Wilson Quarterly (Fall 2016):
By November 1990, Professor Graham Allison of Harvard University had become alarmed at the deterioration of the Soviet ...
- 53k
57
votes
2
answers
11k
views
Does Ukraine have biological weapons facilities?
There's a viral conspiracy theory that Russia attacked Ukraine to neutralize Ukraine's biological weapons. Among many other sources, this tweet from Glenn Greenwald cites a video where Senator Marco ...
- 939
33
votes
2
answers
23k
views
Were a large fraction of US Dollars in existence printed since 2020?
For many months now I have heard claims on the internet and radio that some large fraction of USD "in existence" were printed since 2020. The percentage ranges between 40 and 80%.
Is it a ...
- 451
16
votes
1
answer
17k
views
Has Dr. Fauci entered the Federal witness protection program?
In a public appearance covered by an NBC News affiliate, there is the following comment by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with context (emphasis mine) via DeSantis announces $20M funding for ...
- 1,572
5
votes
0
answers
689
views
Was Apple Maps hacked to show "Ministry of Fascism" in place of the Russian Ministry of Defense?
It's a story that originated with RT, but I haven't seen it covered in Western publications. (I've linked to an Indian one--Republicworld.)
According to Russia's state-controlled television network ...
- 53k
1
vote
1
answer
1k
views
Would a meltdown/explosion at Zaporizhia mean the "evacuation" of Europe?
According to the Guardian, Zelenskiy said (on the fighting at Zaporizhia nuclear plant):
“If there will be an explosion, it will be the end to all of us: the
end of Europe, the evacuation of Europe,”
...
- 145
-1
votes
1
answer
709
views
Are these maps captured Russian plans to invade Ukraine? [closed]
Pro-Ukrainian twitter user, @TruthsUnchained, tweeted:
#BREAKING 📰
Russian battle plans captured, likely from one of the command vehicles captured.
Battle plans were approved on January 18th and ...
- 109
18
votes
0
answers
641
views
Has traffic in some hashtags "plunged" since Russia lost access to Twitter? [closed]
Russia has blocked access to Twitter and Facebook. Opinions vary as to why, but most speculate that it is to prevent the general public from knowing how the Ukraine invasion is going.
Today, I have ...
- 379
7
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Did the Russian 74th motorised rifle brigade surrender in February '22? [closed]
The following statements go around on the major social media networks. However, I have been unable to verify the statements are actually sourced.
Ragıp Soylu (Turkey Bureau Chief for MiddleEastEye):
...
- 485
6
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Did a Ukrainian woman tell a Russian solider in Kherson Oblast to put seeds in his pockets so flowers would grow when he dies in Ukraine?
Basically, is the following a real exchange, down to the details? Reported on Twitter with 1.1M views:
Ukrainian woman confronts Russian soldiers in Henychesk, Kherson region. Asks them why they came ...
- 53k
30
votes
1
answer
7k
views
Did a Turkish cargo ship get bombed in the Black Sea during the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
In a Discord server, someone pointed out the following article by Russian state news media about a Turkish cargo ship which was reportedly hit by a bomb on the way from Odessa to Romania:
Turkish ...
- 1,737