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1500 questions
74
votes
2 answers
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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74
votes
2 answers
Do snowballs snowball?
"Snowball" as a verb, means to increase rapidly in size - a reference to the Snowball Effect:
The common analogy is with the rolling of a snowball down a snow-covered hillside. As it rolls the ball will pick up more snow, gaining more mass and…
Oddthinking
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74
votes
3 answers
Has a fifteen year old from Canada discovered a hidden Mayan city?
Recent news stories have reported on the discovery of a lost Mayan city by William Gadoury, a 15-year-old from Canada.
According to these reports, Gadoury noticed a correspondence between the locations of Mayan cities and Mayan constellations (the…
Chris Taylor
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74
votes
7 answers
Was the QWERTY keyboard layout designed to slow down typists?
I have heard that the QWERTY keyboard layout was invented to get around the problem of old fashioned typewriters getting stuck if you typed too quickly.
Is this story true, or was there another reason for the QWERTY layout?
Ardesco
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74
votes
6 answers
Did the National Rifle Association (NRA) block research into statistics related to gun control?
About 30,000 Americans die every year from gun-related deaths (a number likely to exceed those dying from automobile-related accidents very soon if trends continue). About 1 in 3 of those are homicides and the remainder suicides. Together this…
matt_black
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74
votes
1 answer
Did astronauts or cosmonauts have sex in space?
The Guardian:
US and Russian astronauts have had sex in space for separate research programmes on how human beings might survive years in orbit, according to a book published yesterday.
Pierre Kohler, a respected French scientific writer, says in…
Carlo Alterego
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74
votes
2 answers
Does working over 40 hours a week make you less productive?
Does modern research prescribe 40 hour workweeks, and agree that
increasing hours doesn't proportionally increase productivity
you turn in less and worse work, and risk dangerous mistakes
longer workweeks turn counter-productive after some…
Jesvin Jose
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74
votes
6 answers
Does circumcision lead to a net increase in quality of life?
I was recently surprised to learn that many Americans have been circumcised even though their parents had no religious motivation to go through with it. This in strong contrast with my home country where doctors are frequently refuse to perform the…
Kit Sunde
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73
votes
4 answers
Can one purchase the title of "Lord", "Laird" or "Lady" in Scotland?
I have recently started receiving Youtube advertisements for "Established titles", claiming to sell you a square foot of land in Scotland, entitling you to call yourself some variant of "Lord".
Their website states:
Our Title Packs are based on a…
HAEM
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73
votes
3 answers
Has a virus ever escaped a high-level virus lab "such as the one in Wuhan"?
As somewhat unclearly related in the Daily Mail:
Dr Keusch, Professor of Medicine and International Health at Boston University's Schools of Medicine and Public Health, stressed that no release of viruses from a high-level lab, such as the one in…
the gods from engineering
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73
votes
4 answers
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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73
votes
2 answers
Did Obama defy precedent by not visiting the D-Day monument?
This seems like a very dubious picture, from a very clearly politically motivated website, but I was wondering if there was any truth to this picture?
Dupontrocks11
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73
votes
4 answers
Is there a death penalty if you jump off a building (and don't die) in New York?
According to dumblaws.com, in New York (City? State? or both?):
The penalty for jumping off a building is death.
It is the second most-voted weird law in NY in ranker.com also:
If Jumping Off a Building Doesn't Kill You... the City of NYC Will…
ermanen
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73
votes
1 answer
Is this a real photo of North Korean kids?
I've seen this image multiple times thrown around in social media. It purportedly shows malnourished kids in North Korea.
I could not find a reputable source for this image using Google image search, only blogs. Is this image truly showing North…
Gabriel
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73
votes
4 answers
Are thousands of Islamic terrorists entering the United States?
In an interview with an Ohio television station, the 2016 Republican nominee for President said:
when you have radical Islamic terrorists probably all over the place, we’re allowing them to come in [to the United States] by the thousands and…
Kevin Burke
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