Skepticism

By Ben Yagoda I am staring at a photograph of myself that shows me 20 years older than I am now. I have not stepped into the twilight zone. Rather, I am trying to rid myself of some measure of my present bias, which is the tendency people have, when considering a trade-off between two …

By Robert Blaskiewicz The Qanon conspiracy theory is both an old and new conspiracy theory; the narrative elements of the conspiracy long predate this most recent assemblage. In the week since Qanon signs and supporters appeared at the President’s Tampa rally waving signs and wearing Q t-shirts, the press has focused on the bizarre beliefs promulgated …

By Don Lincoln Water is literally the elixir of life. Without it, no Earthly living organism can survive. It’s the reason that the Sahara and Atacama deserts are barren wastelands. When humans began exploring our planet, each time they encountered a new island or valley, finding drinkable water was their first order of business. And …

By Laura Geggel A woman in England learned the hard way that it’s not safe to treat a foot fungus infection by covering it with slices of raw garlic, according to a new report of the woman’s case. Instead of treating her athlete’s foot, the garlic severely burned and blistered the woman’s skin, ultimately landing her …

By Hemant Mehta The Center For Inquiry has filed a lawsuit against CVS Health Corporation (which includes its nearly 10,000 pharmacies) for promoting and selling homeopathic remedies. CVS is deceiving customers, CFI says, “through its misrepresentation of homeopathy’s safety and effectiveness, wasting customers’ money and putting their health at risk.” Homeopathy is, of course the sham treatment that takes …

By Mike Hibbard He has been called the most remarkable American most people have never heard of. His name is Robert Green Ingersoll, and his birthplace in this tiny Yates County village has reached a milestone anniversary. Over the Memorial Day weekend, the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum opened for its 25th consecutive season. Officials …

By Bahar Gholipour In a recent interview with NBC’s Today show, singer Kelly Clarkson said her 37-lb. (17 kilograms) weight loss was a happy side effect of a diet she followed primarily to overcome her thyroid problem. “I literally read this book, and I did it for this autoimmune disease that I had, and I had a thyroid …

By Rachael Rettner Your kitchen towel may harbor a number of different bacteria, a new study finds. But does that mean your towel can actually make you sick? Although the new finding may sound gross, it doesn’t mean you should ditch your kitchen towel; experts said the bacteria found on the towels in this study …

By Alan Burdick On the last Sunday afternoon in March, Mike Hughes, a sixty-two-year-old limousine driver from Apple Valley, California, successfully launched himself above the Mojave Desert in a homemade steam-powered rocket. He’d been trying for years, in one way or another. In 2002, Hughes set a Guinness World Record for the longest ramp jump—a hundred and three …

By Marcelo Gleiser “What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning,” wrote German physicist Werner Heisenberg, who was the first to fathom the uncertainty inherent in quantum physics. To those who think of science as a direct path to the truth about the world, this quote must …

By Julia Belluz If you’ve wondered whatever happened to the snake oil–peddling celebrity physician Dr. Oz, and whether he’s still going strong, look no further than this news nugget today: President Donald Trump just announced he’ll appoint Oz to his Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition. Along with other sports and health celebrities — including the New England …

By Ben Popken YouTube is a supercomputer working to achieve a specific goal — to get you to spend as much time on YouTube as possible. But no one told its system exactly how to do that. After YouTube built the system that recommends videos to its users, former employees like Guillaume Chaslot, a software …