90
Generally true. Some nuance applies, plus exceptions.
It is generally true that eyes of predators are different than eyes of prey. Not only are the pupils sometimes different in the way suggested in the claim, but eye placement and some other factors are different as well. The general theory accepted by biologists is that predators tend to fixate on their ...
87
A summary of recent evidence suggests:
In children with initial low calcium intake, an increase in milk/dairy intake is associated with an increase in bone density.
In adults, milk/dairy consumption is not or only weakly associated with lower risk of bone fractures.
Basic explanation:
90% of peak bone mineral density (the amount of calcium and phosphorus ...
59
We cannot be sure exactly what happened 7 centuries ago; we only have the one account. However something akin to this experiment did occur, albeit without the controlled conditions. In Romania during Communism thousands of children were consigned to orphanages where they were grossly neglected (warning: the linked article contains distressing details).
Many ...
36
Interestingly there's a survey: "Biologists' Consensus on 'When Life Begins'", 2018 of US biologists on this (the choice of profession/experts was motivated by a pre-survey of the US population at large):
Many Americans disagree on ‘When does a human’s life begin?’ because the question is subject to interpretive ambiguity arising from Hume’s is-ought ...
21
Sites that support the use of CGI or other digital manipulation effects do not provide supporting evidence. Specifically, what you see is really happening, whether in nature or in the lab. However, scenes placed together may not have actually happened together.
For example:
Say that documentarians want to capture a kangaroo fight. Getting this kind of ...
20
Not directly related to your source(s), but see the article pit of despair on Wikipedia. Warning, the article and the experiment itself can be rather disturbing.
Harlow's first experiments involved isolating a monkey in a cage surrounded by steel walls with a small one-way mirror, so the experimenters could look in, but the monkey could not look out. The ...
18
No
Science does not define life as "beginning at conception", because science does not, to any satisfactory degree, define "life" in the general case:
There is no broadly accepted definition of 'life.' Suggested definitions face problems, often in the form of robust counter-examples. Here we use insights from philosophical investigations into language to ...
17
No, while 337 starlings (<5% of the population) and 2 common wood pigeons were found dead in a Netherlands park, this was not due to a 5G test. The birds died 4 months after the only conducted 5G test and such "bird death" events are quite common.
Snopes is my first search result for "The Hague dead birds".
They say unexplained bird deaths occurring in ...
16
In addition to the other answers I would like to clarify that Salimbene indeed described an experiment in which the children died of social isolation. Here is the original excerpt1:
Secunda eius superstitio fuit quia voluit experiri, cuiusmodi linguam et loquelam haberent pueri, cum adolevissent, si cum nemine loquerentur. Et ideo precepit baiulis et ...
14
There is little doubt that the cold water was deadly to many of the victims in the Titanic desaster. The figure given in the Wikipedia article, that "most people who entered the −2°C (28°F) water died in 15–30 minutes" is certainly plausible. However, note the word "most": the quote doesn't state how many lived longer than 30 minutes, but there must have ...
14
The claim that we share 50% of our DNA is likely a misquote of an older claim, that we share 50% of our genes with bananas. Both claims, as best I can tell, are false. I'll address each claim in turn.
50% of our DNA?
The idea that we share 50% of our DNA is, by most obvious definitions of what that might mean, completely false, and trivially so. Per ...
13
Some University of California scientists suspect the eye shape to be highly related with the animal's lifestyle.
When they pulled everything together, a clear pattern emerged. In the journal Science Advances, the scientists report that there's a strong link between the shape of an animal's pupil and its way of life.
"If you have a vertical slit, ...
10
According to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) (emphasis added):
Researchers used to think that eye color was determined by a single gene and followed a simple inheritance pattern in which brown eyes were dominant to blue eyes. Under this model, it was believed that parents who both had blue eyes could not have a child with brown eyes. However, ...
10
It is NOT TRUE that "most humans are hosts to these parasitic worms called Ascaris lumbricoides (Roundworms)."
Ascariasis (CDC.gov, 2018):
An estimated 807 million–1.2 billion people in the world are infected
with Ascaris lumbricoides...Ascariasis is now uncommon in the United
States.
There is NO EVIDENCE that "water fasting is by far, one of the ...
8
This article is about goldfish, not sharks, but it's the same urban legend:
Goldfish Only Grow to the Size of Their Enclosure
There is an element
of truth to this, but it is not as innocent as it sounds and is
related more to water quality than tank size. When properly cared for,
goldfish will not stop growing. Most fishes are in fact what are ...
7
People vary a lot and there is some evidence that the human ability to withstand cold varies with the behaviour of said people.
A famous example is Wim Hof who discovered that a cycle of hyperventilation and holding your breath greatly improves the human resistance to hypothermia. he has held many records for cold resistance over the years.
The current ...
7
According to The micropenis and the giant clitoris Salon 12 December 1999:
In Baltimore, intersexual Kiira Triea, 35, claims her genitalia "look like crap" because doctors treated her like an "exotic lab rat." Born with in-between organs, she was raised as a boy until doctors decided to feminize her at puberty. To accomplish this, they hacked off her ...
6
I've been served pomegranate seeds by our canteen contractor on a regular basis, as a "special extra" on burgers...
They are definitely edible (and high in fiber!). They contain anthocyanins, which contribute to their color (also contained in black currant, raspberries, cherries etc.), but are — despite the "cyan" in there — harmless.
6
The Wikipedia page has since been rephrased to contain the following, more accurate, paragraph:
The maize plant is often 3 m (10 ft) in height, though some natural strains can grow 13 m (43 ft). The stem is commonly composed of 20 internodes of 18 cm (7.1 in) length. A leaf, which grows from each node, is generally 9 cm (4 in) in width and 120 cm (4 ft) ...
5
No.
There's been further research since this question was posed in 2015.
A randomized controlled study of power posing before public speaking exposure for social anxiety disorder: No evidence for augmentative effects. (J Anxiety Disord. 2017 Dec) concludes, as one might gather from the title:
this study provides no evidence to suggest that power posing ...
5
Summary
The estimation of prevalence of lactose intolerance may be too high because of:
surveys in which they included individuals with self-diagnosed and not just officially diagnozed lactose intolerance
false positive diagnostic tests (up to 20% according to American Family Physician) due to other problems, such as irritable bowel syndrome, sensitivity ...
5
Is there a species of locust-eating wasp that will check its burrow repeatedly if its food is moved?
It seems that Fabre's original claim has been greatly exaggerated by subsequent writers, and that the wasps are not nearly as stereotyped as those subsequent authors have claimed; Fabre's own description noted that not all wasps of the species showed this rigid behavior, and later studies have not supported it.
The Sphex story is an anecdote about a ...
4
Snopes actually has more details refuting the sequence of events; because tests of 5G use yet unallocated spectrum, they need special regulatory approval.
One such test did occur in an area generally near Huijgenspark, but it took place on 28 June 2018, and it was not followed by a massive bird die-off. For this test, the Dutch equivalent of the FCC ...
3
You mention a number of closely related, but different, concepts in your question. The answer is still yes, because every concept you listed does exist in nature; Evolution is pretty good at coming up with any example you can think of. However, they are distinct and separate concepts, so let's address each of them individually.
Parthenogenesis
You didn't ...
2
Fasting, and or eating of weird stuff can make roundworms move, but they get no benefit from leaving the body, so they migrate internally. They procreate by "eggs", thus the notion of them leaving because of a deteriorating food supply is spurious.
TL;DR of the below: Hunger, dietary changes and failed deworming medication regimes can make the roundworm ...
1
Brooklinen has now removed the claim (which now redirects to Brooklinen's home page). An archived version of the claim is here.
1
There is a short report on the swiss national broadcaster, SRF, about the incident, to be found here, in german: https://www.srf.ch/news/wirtschaft/mobilfunk-geruechte-die-wichtigsten-antworten-in-der-5g-debatte
In short it says (translation mine):
Local authorities rebuted 5G-tests on that same day. Dead birds have
been found over the course of ...
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