195
votes
Accepted
In the American west—the world of cowboys and cowhands—was ammunition traded for alcoholic “shots” of a drink?
The answer seems to be no on all accounts.
In general, Snopes says:
Although the meme is of recent origin, Internet mentions of this alleged historical fact date to at least 2003. Significantly, ...
- 32.8k
42
votes
Is vodka (or alcohol solutions with less than 60% concentration) an effective hand sanitizer against Covid-19?
A more recent study (also published by the CDC) seems to indicate that 30% might be a good enough concentration against SARS-CoV-2:
[Figure legend:] Effect of commercially available alcohols in ...
- 63.6k
38
votes
Accepted
Were postal pneumatic tubes in Berlin (Rohrpost) cleared with wine?
Landrath, "Die Rohrpost-Anlage in Berlin und Charlottenburg." Archiv für Post und Telegraphie , Vol. 16, No. 12, Jun. 1888, pp. 354-369 describes, among other items, the initial version of ...
- 496
36
votes
Were postal pneumatic tubes in Berlin (Rohrpost) cleared with wine?
Annual report of the Postmaster General, 1891 is as close to a primary source as I could find:
In working the line of Berlin tubes a number of defects became apparent in course of time, caused partly ...
- 32.8k
33
votes
Is the Japanese government encouraging the young to consume more alcohol?
Yes, here is a decent article about it:
Why Japan is asking its young people to drink more
The country’s National Tax Agency (NTA) has introduced content named ‘Sake Viva’ where it has invited ideas ...
- 46.4k
29
votes
In the American west—the world of cowboys and cowhands—was ammunition traded for alcoholic “shots” of a drink?
The word "Shot", a corruption of the Late Old-Engish "Scot" or "Secot", itself a corruption of the old Norse "skot", was a word meaning a Tax or measure. This means it pre-dates not just the "Wild ...
- 406
23
votes
Did Christine Ford testify both that she drank alcohol and didn't drink alcohol at the party where she was assaulted?
No, when she said "Not at all" she was answering the question:
Do you recall prior to getting there — so I’m — I’m only talking about up to the gathering — had you had anything to drink?
...
- 109k
17
votes
Is tequila a probiotic?
No.
A probiotic food, as defined by the dictionaries (1) (2) (3) must contain benefical live bacteria (regarding the human organism). Scientific literature calls those bacteria probiotic (4).
...
- 3,297
11
votes
Does the body get rid of alcocol first before metabolizing food?
It is not that our body "focuses" on alcohol but alcohol being a liquid gets absorbed and metabolized quickly (or first in relation to your question), whereas food needs to be broken down first into ...
- 111
11
votes
Accepted
Have the UK official alcohol limits been reduced to a quarter of the levels recommended in 1979?
I tried to follow the trail, but was unsuccessful.
In 1994, an (not peer-reviewed) letter by was published in the British Medical Journal by G Winstanley (representing an organisation that represents ...
- 144k
9
votes
Have the UK official alcohol limits been reduced to a quarter of the levels recommended in 1979?
No. But for the simple reason that the UK in 1979 did not have a country wide guideline. Yes, in the sense that in 1979 one such guideline was proposed. From that starting point the trend for a ...
- 44.1k
8
votes
Accepted
Is alcohol beneficial in small amounts?
It seems to depend on the way the observational, epidemiological and correlational data is used. That is: how the data is gathered, analysed and interpreted. And how puritan the belief systems of the ...
- 44.1k
8
votes
Do societies that are less abstemious have more sensible drinking patterns?
In short: No. But it is a bit more complicated than that.
It is probably a bad way to phrase it like "The more alcohol a society consumes, the fewer alcohol-related problems and alcohol-related ...
- 44.1k
8
votes
Is the Pareto Principle applicable to national alcohol consumption?
A long time has passed since this question popped up, but I have found evidence that yes, the Pareto Principle is valid for alcohol/ beer consumption.
Quoting this paper (BMJ 2016;353:i1860):
...
- 795
7
votes
Did Russia use drunkenness to promote soldier aggression in WW2?
Here is a Wikipedia article in Russian on the subject.
Basically, each soldier started to receive 100g of vodka during the Soviet-Finnish War (in 1940):
Ещё в январе 1940 года во время Советско-...
- 171
6
votes
Is Alcoholics Anonymous effective?
It's time to give an answer that is updated for 2018 (make that 2020):
The 2020 Cochrane Review of Alcoholics Anonymous shows a small but significant increase in full abstinence from alcohol using ...
- 169
6
votes
Does more than one unit of alcohol a day damage your long term brain function and increase the risk of dementia?
The newspaper headlines exaggerate the paper's conclusions, but they, in turn, are not justified by the data shown
The paper itself does not make any attempt to measure the occurrence of specific ...
- 56.3k
6
votes
Does Cristiano Ronaldo drink or smoke?
The drinking and tattoo claims seem to be true.
Does Ronaldo not have any tattoos so that he can donate blood more freely?
This seems to be correct. Various places report it online, for example ...
- 22.4k
6
votes
Accepted
Do more DUIs occur the morning after drinking rather than the night of?
I couldn't find anything about the US as a whole, but there are statistics for DUI (or DWI, among other acronyms) arrests for smaller parts of the US by time of day. (For information about the ...
- 32.8k
6
votes
Does reported alcohol intake, according to population surveys, only account for half of the alcohol sold?
Do populations (as a whole) under-report the amount of alcohol they drink on simple surveys?
Oh, yes.
This 1983 experiment with 49 men, Diary gives more accurate information about alcohol consumption ...
- 144k
3
votes
Accepted
Has any scholar proposed an etymology of "pissed" (in the sense of "drunk") related to drinking psychoactive urine?
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it dates to 1812, but with the spelling "pist" in Rhymes of Northern Bards Being a Curious Collection of Old and New Songs and Poems, Peculiar to ...
- 109k
3
votes
Accepted
Does drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana at the same time cause any trouble?
This psychology today article suggest that combining both can lead to severe effects and even death.
Consuming too much alcohol usually leads to vomiting, as the body is getting rid of the toxins, but ...
- 3,012
2
votes
Is tequila a probiotic?
Ethanol /ˈɛθənɒl/ (EtOH), also commonly called alcohol, ethyl alcohol, and drinking alcohol, is the principal type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, produced by the fermentation of sugars by ...
- 1,640
2
votes
Did the Dalai Lama cause Mongolians to significantly reduce their alcohol consumption?
I'm guessing this may very well refer to Airag, fermented horse milk. That suggestion would make more sense (lower alcohol percentage and traditional drink) from a visitor and compared to vodka, airag ...
- 37
2
votes
Is tequila a probiotic?
The Facebook video is wrong because they have confused tequila with agave and probiotics with prebiotics.
1) Tequila is made of agave, (Alcoholreviews.com), which contains fructans, which are a type ...
- 5,057
2
votes
Does more than one unit of alcohol a day damage your long term brain function and increase the risk of dementia?
The Sun article refers to this study, which concludes:
The relationship between alcohol use and cognitive function is non-linear. Consuming more than one UK standard unit of alcohol per day is ...
- 121
2
votes
Does drinking alcohol improve foreign language skills?
This is a line of inquiry that gets much interest from participants, like students, and very little funding.
The newspaper article is based on this paper:
Dutch courage? Effects of acute alcohol ...
- 44.1k
1
vote
Did the Dalai Lama cause Mongolians to significantly reduce their alcohol consumption?
Here is a story about the President of Mongolia with the campaign to switch to celebrate with milk instead of vodka. It is very likely that the President would have been persuaded to do this by the ...
- 19
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible