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1500 questions
76
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2 answers

Does Sci-Hub use malware and phishing to obtain researchers' login credentials?

There is a new BBC article, Police warn students to avoid science website about Sci-Hub, a pirate site to circumvent paywalls on science journals. But Max Bruce, the City of London police's cyber protection officer, has urged universities to block…
user2316602
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Does the Wall Street Journal change headlines based on location?

I found saw a recent image going around on Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/thebenfergusonshow/photos/a.10150670938916638.382006.95356211637/10154308573296638/?type=3&source=48 The picture shows two copies of the wall street journal that look…
user11643
76
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3 answers

The origin of "99 cents"

I've seen two competing theories on the origin of pricing products at $.99 (i.e. charging $19.99 instead of $20, of $5.99 instead of $6): Psychological pricing scheme used by retailers to make products seem one dollar…
Billy ONeal
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1 answer

Do razors with more blades work better?

A known disposable razor company is claiming on their web site that their current product is superior to their old one because it has 5 blades instead of three. You can see the claim on the "science" page here, watching the "Why Fusion is better…
Sklivvz
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75
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Is America “the only nation where this [a mass shooting] regularly happens”?

The Onion, a satirical newspaper, re-uses a headline each time a mass shooting occurs in the US: “No Way To Prevent This,” Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens Most recently for the shooting in Uvalde, TX. This tradition has its own…
KRyan
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75
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7 answers

Did the Black Lives Matter protests fail to cause a spike in coronavirus cases?

Multiple reputable news organizations have been reporting on a study suggesting the 2020 "Black Lives Matter protests" did not contribute to the increase of the Covid-19 pandemic. Some have even suggested that it may have slowed down the spread of…
OperatingChown
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3 answers

Have any financial traders gotten a large shipment of a commodity sent to themselves by mistake?

Certain oil futures contracts went negative in April 2020 over the difficulty of storing crude oil. With this came a resurgence of stories of hapless traders receiving the actual commodities that were trading purely as financial instruments. From…
xnor
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Does microwaving food create particles that are not created when warming food by conventional means?

I was reading "Szlachetne Zdrowie" (No 7/2019) which is a Polish health magazine released by "Nasz Dziennik", which is a Catholic, very conservative newspaper of questionable quality. I read the chapter about microwaving written by Barbara Zielonka.…
Learner
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Have 1.5% of all nuclear reactors ever built melted down?

During a June 28, 2012, "Talk at Google", Stanford professor Mark Jacobson made the following claim: One and a half percent of all nuclear reactors ever built, and there have been about 440, have melted down to some degree. Details of the talk…
LShaver
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Did the maps for services such as Snapchat, CitiBike and StreetEasy label New York City as “Jewtropolis” for a brief amount of time?

While checking my Twitter feed this morning (August 30, 2018) I came across this tweet that claimed that services like Snapchat, CitiBike and StreetEasy renamed New York City as “Jewtropolis.” Screenshots below. Did this event actually happen? Were…
Giacomo1968
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75
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Does the source code of the software for a high-end car contain on average around 100 million lines of code?

This infographic shows the different number of lines that some software applications (or a general type of them) have on average. The number of lines shown for an average modern high-end car strikes me as implausible. I know modern cars have lots of…
Jesús Gómez
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Is any male over 15 years of age considered a combatant if killed by a drone strike?

In the essay "We have always fought" by Kameron Hurley, she makes the following claim: We don’t kill “fifteen year old boys” but “enemy combatants” (yes, every boy 15 and over killed in drone strikes now is automatically listed as an enemy…
pidan_dan
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Does Shell get $2 billion a year in subsidies from the US government?

While browsing reddit, I saw the following graphic from the Late Stage Capitalism subreddit: (Two stick figures are shown, the second one with Shell's logo for a head) This is Bob. Bob gets $1,500/year in food stamps so his family doesn't…
Mark Rogers
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Were pen cap holes designed to prevent death by suffocation if swallowed?

Someone posted the following trivia on a social media website: Do you know that pen caps have holes so that if someone swallows a cap, then air could still pass through? This started a small debate, with some saying that the needed volume of air…
Adrian Iftode
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Do wooden building fires get hotter than 600°C?

After the recent Notre-Dame de Paris fire, there has been a heavily re-posted tweet going around in response to an earlier claim that a golden cross did not melt or deform - due to an act of God. Kaylee Crain: "After all the aftermath and…
Bilkokuya
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