89
votes
Accepted
Does milk make your bones stronger?
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 ...
- 4,994
66
votes
Accepted
Did The Lancet publish an account of a woman who did not age?
It seems that we don't know, but probably not.
What we have here is a notable person claiming without a reference that a peer reviewed journal supposedly reported on what many might consider a miracle....
- 3,846
63
votes
Accepted
Did the study mentioned by "The virginity fraud" TEDx Talk happen?
See Genital Anatomy in Pregnant Adolescents: “Normal” Does Not Mean “Nothing Happened” Pediatrics, January 2004, volume 113, pages e67-e69.
METHODS
The purpose of this study was to summarize the ...
- 104k
61
votes
Can venomous snakes be determined by these pupil, nostril and scale patterns?
No, this is not true. Not even for just India, as Indian cobra (Naja naja) has round pupils and subcaudal (tail) scales are divided. There is also no pit visible. It is venomous species of snake.
...
- 671
58
votes
Accepted
Are blue light filters, not blue lights, on phones and computer screens harmful to sleep?
This is the study itself if you want to read it. Yes it is a study in mice. It is evidence but not proof that blue filters are counter-productive, at least according to the authors of this single, ...
- 7,194
56
votes
Accepted
Does vegetarian sweat smell better?
"Smell" is a sense that is said to be more directly tied to emotional processing in the brain than other senses. But all interpretations of sensory information is subject to subjectivity. And smell is ...
- 44k
56
votes
Accepted
Do people carry around up to 20 lbs (9 kg) of poop?
No.
According to the chapter "Carbohydrate Metabolism in the Colon" in Human Colonic Bacteria (1995) :
The large intestine contains about 220 g wet weight of contents (range circa 60–900 g),...
- 104k
41
votes
Can the Bajau people stay underwater for as long as 13 minutes?
I will say 'no'.
According to the study Underwater working times in two groups of traditional apnea divers in Asia: The Ama and the Bajau, Bajau divers dive for 28 seconds with an standard deviation ...
- 5,221
36
votes
Do people carry around up to 20 lbs (9 kg) of poop?
Those Ads were popular on TV years ago. They all claim some permanent build-up of "extra poop" which only a cleanse can remove. I found a lovely 2018 quote from a skeptic medical office of ...
- 935
33
votes
Is there a point of no return when starving to death?
tl;dr: Yes, there is a point at which recovery is not possible without significant medical intervention.
Death by starvation is not simply a matter of running out of energy to sustain life, so cannot ...
- 852
28
votes
Accepted
Can a camera flash blind the eyes of a baby?
Snopes lists it as unproven.
http://m.snopes.com/camera-flash-blind-baby/
The Daily Mail pointed to the unreliable People’s Daily Online as the
source of this information, who in turn sourced ...
- 9,486
28
votes
If one man is shot in the head while holding a gun to another man, can the former get a shot off on the latter?
Yes, it is possible for one to get a shot off after being shot in the head oneself.
Here are two different examples, both involving cab drivers being shot in the head and still returning fire.
For the ...
- 104k
27
votes
Are women physically weaker?
Grip Strength
When testing grip strength, a median young adult man is stronger than about 98%+ of young adult women. Even the top fraction of female athletes as a population are only slightly ...
- 9,486
26
votes
Can venomous snakes be determined by these pupil, nostril and scale patterns?
... maybe a bit more education hurts even less... but the answer is still no.
So to me the description with pits and slit pupils (and also the head drawing) looks like indicating pit vipers. I don't ...
25
votes
Accepted
Is the comeback of measles in the US "largely due to anti-vaxers?"
The answer depends a lot on what mechanism you imply and who you consider to be "anti-vaxxers". If you consider anti-vaxxers to be all groups of people who as a group oppose vaccination (e.g. for ...
- 1,975
25
votes
Accepted
Does it take two weeks for a single man to produce enough sperm to impregnate every fertile woman on Earth?
Theoretically that is rough-ballpark-correct. But that is assuming that you would need only one sperm per woman, which is unrealistic.
Using the... erm... "normal" way, not every sperm finds its way ...
- 19k
24
votes
Accepted
Does defecating while sitting cause more strain than squatting?
Normal defecation is initiated by three components
(1) spontaneous phasic contractions of rectum starting during filling.
(2) smooth muscle relaxation of the anal canal with an increased
recto-anal ...
- 22.7k
23
votes
Accepted
Is any unconscious person capable of full splits?
No. The claim, that "when unconscious, we are all capable of full splits", is not supported by evidence.
There is not a great deal of literature on this topic. One paper on a similar topic “...
- 1,520
22
votes
Can black people, on average, jump higher than white people?
According to Relationship between vertical jump and maximal power output of legs and arms: Effects of ethnicity and sport Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports Volume 25, April 2015,...
- 104k
22
votes
Can venomous snakes be determined by these pupil, nostril and scale patterns?
That is a diagram for identifying pit vipers. There are many, many venomous snakes in the world, including I believe all of the most deadly ones, that are not pit vipers.
The advice is particularly ...
- 1,588
17
votes
Accepted
Has a human baby's heart started beating only 18 days after conception?
The fetal heart may begin to beat at approximately the 22nd day after fertilization which corresponds to 3 weeks and 1 day after fertilization i.e. 5 weeks 1 day of pregnancy. Between 5 ½ to 6 ½ ...
- 22.7k
17
votes
Is 1,7% of the population born intersex?
The 1.7% figure is from this article[1] (emphasis mine):
Adding
the
estimates
of
all
known
causes
of
nondimorphic
sexual
development
suggests
that
approximately
1.7%
...
- 3,289
16
votes
Accepted
Does it take time for the brain to realize that you have eaten too much?
The mechanisms of hunger and satiation are regulated by the endocrine system, not through the much faster nervous system.
The specific hormone that regulates appetite is ghrelin. When the stomach is ...
- 9,668
16
votes
Can a lightbulb once inserted into your mouth be safely removed?
While it's a bad idea to put fragile glass objects in your mouth, the primary assertion here is clearly false.
First of all, there are at least five different YouTube videos where people try it out ...
- 7,194
15
votes
Does synthetic vitamin C contribute to the formation of genotoxins that can lead to cancer?
In a sciencemag.org article, which was apparently about this study, they state that:
In the process of destroying free radicals, vitamin C turns into what's called a vitamin C radical. If certain ...
- 311
14
votes
Are physically attractive people more likely to be right wing politically?
When I encounter popular reporting on scientific claims, I have a checklist that I go through to check its credibility. I do not try to evaluate their methods myself, because I cannot rigourously ...
- 12k
13
votes
Accepted
Does sleeping on your left side improve digestion?
Sleeping positions on the right or left might have an influence on digestion if the digestive problems are related to gastroesophageal reflux per research mentioned below.
Per Katz LC et.al.'s ...
- 22.7k
13
votes
Were humans placed on Earth by aliens?
Ellis Silver takes a number of features of human physiology, claims they are inexplicable by evolution, and comes to the extreme conclusion that aliens placed humans on Earth.
However, each of the ...
- 140k
13
votes
Does it take two weeks for a single man to produce enough sperm to impregnate every fertile woman on Earth?
Based on some information in the answer by DevSolar I will estimate the number of sperm in the range of 190-290 million a day, which as noted has a fair amount of uncertainty. However, I'm willing to ...
- 945
12
votes
Accepted
Does UA Rush bodywear improve athletic performance?
I started with search engines looking for supporting evidence. However, I found none, so I decided to contact Under Armour directly. (Ping me in chat and add a comment for the full transcript. I have ...
- 14.1k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible