All Questions

A Smithsonian article about goldfish starts out with (emphasis added): The 2003 Pixar film Finding Nemo popularized the misconception that all drains lead to the ocean, encouraging young fans to ...

The following image has been floating around social media today (July 11, 2019) claiming to be a statement being made by Marriott International regarding them declining requests to use their U.S. ...

I have decided to give Uncle Tom's Cabin another read. A famous quote that surrounds this book, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, in general, is that when she met Abraham Lincoln, he told her So you're ...

In this BBC news article labour historian and lecturer Steve Babson says: The reason the Ford Model-T was black, was because it was the only paint that would dry fast enough to keep pace with the ...

I was talking about the all important Tea Making Process to a fellow Brit the other day, and he told me that the real reason we add milk to tea is: “It cools the tea down, so you can drink it faster. ...

According to the US Census Bureau's table of estimated population as of July 1 each year, there were 268.3M people 14 years of age or older, including 260.1M people 16 years of age or older, including ...

A friend of mine (who previously studied Chemistry and then had a couple of Nutrition courses) claims that all the sugar that does not occur naturally in our food (eg: sugar in chocolate vs sugar in ...

To quote John Gruber's commentary, related to the recent appeals court ruling whereby Trump cannot block people on Twitter: With the absurd number of replies he gets with each tweet — thousands, if ...

Maya Lin’s design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was chosen after a blind competition in the early 1980s. There were many critics of her design and the design’s realization was an uphill battle at ...

According to what seems to be this Roman Catholic church's official Facebook page: Official News : A miracle did happen today with tears coming from a statue of Mother Mary, during prayers. ...

In today's US political climate, a big talking point for some of the Democratic Party candidates is the forgiveness of student loans. Whenever I hear this discussed among my peers, the consensus is ...

In a Ted talk (YouTube), Andrew Solomon says There was a study I particularly liked, in which a group of depressed and a group of non-depressed people were asked to play a video game for an hour, ...

This is an oft-cited "unusual law", e.g. from The Sun: IN FRANCE it is illegal to name a pig Napoleon, almost 200 years after his death. Experts say the odd law exists because ­calling a pig ...

Fact fiend, for example, maintains that: Bruce Lee himself had to slow himself down before the camera even started rolling because when he punched as fast as he could, or as fast as he was allowed ...

The news article https://www.wired.com/story/whole-genome-sequencing-cost-200-dollars/ (mirror) published on 2018-11-18 claims that Today, slightly more than a million people have had their whole ...

Some days ago, I read in several news sources [1][2][3] about an asteroid called 16 Psyche that is made up of precious metals such as gold and platinum. It's estimated worth is about $700 quintillion -...

It was widely reported that on 28th June, 2019, a record temperature of 45.9°C was recorded in Gallargues-le-Montueux, France, breaking the previous 2003 record of 44.1°C. Sources: Metéo France, BBC, ...

In his 2011 book "Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor Dethroned?", Steve Keen says: I am curious about the "falling student enrollments" claim. Is this true? I have struggled to find good ...

jessica a. m. @my2k so the Alabama abortion criminalization bill has an extra tacked onto the end of it wherein, if a woman reports being raped and they find the person she accused not guilty, SHE ...

The following claims are made in this Wired magazine article titled, “How the iPhone Helped Save the Planet” from June 29, 2019; bold emphasis is mine: “Total electricity use in the US, for example,...

In 1919, the world's first non-stop trans-Atlantic flight happened, and Rolls-Royce engines provided the power to make it happen. Marking the 100th anniversary of the 20th-century milestone, Rolls-...

A few articles report this statistic that 63% of Instagram users are 'miserable': https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900022603/63-percent-of-instagram-users-report-being-miserable-heres-why.html ...

The following letter (dated June 30, 1977) claiming to be from Joe Biden is currently floating around social media. Is this real?

The Pentagon is claiming that they have a device which can identify people by heart beat from 200m away. A new device, developed for the Pentagon after US Special Forces requested it, can identify ...

Democratic Presidential Candidate and former Housing Secretary Julian Castro said this in last night’s debate: If I were president today, I would sign an executive order that would get rid of Trump’...

I recently saw a billboard with "better ate than never", the phrase was new to me so I looked it up and found. Emphases mine: In addition to wasting precious resources, nearly all of the food ...

This Travel Stack Exchange answer states something I long considered for granted (probably because my parents told me so): if you want to avoid mosquitoes, switch off the light. Opening the ...

I have been seeing people on social media say that the college/university graduation rate of people with ADHD is around only 5%. According to this Medscape article, ADHD: Recent Advances in ...

I took this self-survey of CO2 emissions run by the German Environment Agency. It computes for example that an economy class seat from London to San Francisco and back – about 22 hours flight &...

This year is the 20th anniversary of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia/Serbia. At the moment, Serbian media outlets are focused on claims that depleted uranium in NATO bombs used during the bombardment ...

Bernie Sanders, who is running for president in 2020 gave a speech a few days ago. He makes a claim which goes like the following: Today the world's richest 26 billionaires, 26, now own as much ...

I found one study from 2017 that says (emphasis mine): We recommend four widely applicable high-impact (i.e. low emissions) actions with the potential to contribute to systemic change and ...

In Marshall (Prisoners of Geography, 2015) writes: In 1951, China annexed Tibet (another vast non-Han territory) and by then Chinese school textbook maps began to depict China as stretching even ...

According to Wikipedia, Technical Analysis (TA) is an analysis methodology for forecasting the direction of prices through the study of past market data, primarily price and volume. As I ...

Sans Forgetica is a font designed using the principles of cognitive psychology to help you to better remember your study notes. Sans Forgetica is more difficult to read than most typefaces – and ...

Bosch makes this claim in their jigsaw blade documentation: Bi-Metal (BiM): This highly flexible, tough combination of HSS [High-Speed Steel] and HCS [High-Carbon Steel] results in a blade ...

There is currently contradicting information regarding to the location where the USAF RQ-4 Global Hawk was shot down by Iranian forces, with the US claiming it happened over international waters and ...

There is a large number of sites - particularly fundamentalist Christian sites - claiming that the people who meet the diagnostic criteria for brain death are, nonetheless, capable of recovering. For ...

I have seen this claim made in several popular websites that 90% of startups fail. Two examples: When the founder of a startup company shuts down her or his business, it’s customary to pen an ...

The University of Oxford recently announced a £150 million donation from Stephen Schwartzmann, which their press release (PDF) prominently calls "the largest single donation to Oxford University since ...

Nature Play claim that a child's movement in the first two years helps them grow, specifically a rocking motion like in the womb. The link to the supposed scientific source is now dead. Is there any ...

According to a BBC article: the First and Second Lateran Councils of 1123 and 1139 explicitly forbade priests from marrying - so we are almost past 1,000 years since the Catholic Church has ...

The Telegraph claimed in 2004 that the CIA blew up a Russian gas pipeline in Siberia, by tricking the operator into installing booby-trapped software. Thomas Reed, a former US Air Force secretary ...

On BBC Question Time, Thursday 13 June 2019, Francesca Martinez said: Austerity has caused the death of over 130,000 human beings in Britain. That is absolutely outrageous. That is 130,000 mums and ...

Multiple news sources ranging from 2 years ago to now, such as CNN, NBC, New York Magazine, PBS, Salon, Vox, and NPR mention that between 2005 and May 2017, around 80 police officers have been charged ...

Info Wars host, Mike Cernovich claims, via a recent Change.org petition that Congress has sealed settled sexual harassment lawsuits from the public record? What if I told you that Congressmen ...

In a town hall meeting on June 2, 2019 with Representative Tim Ryan (D-OH), the candidate stated the following (emphasis mine) Now, a lot of people don't know, but Youngstown, Ohio is 50 percent ...

On Reddit, Facebook and elsewhere, a picture went mildly viral claiming that in the USA, a kindergarten is using corporate logos to teach the alphabet: The posts or their comments do not include any ...

DumbLaws.com claim: While it is legal to shoot bears, waking a sleeping bear for the purpose of taking a photograph is prohibited. The Gray Line Alaska blog repeats the claim. There is also a ...

The question was last asked in 2013, and I wondered if there is any more definitive research on this. The german ministry of risks says that there is a possible risk of using them: https://www.bfr....