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1500 questions
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Did Bernie Sanders never "earn a steady paycheck" before 40?
There is a meme going around the conservative news sites and aggregators that 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders didn't "earn a steady paycheck" before the age of 40. See, for instance:
The Gateway Pundit
The American Spectator
Louder with…
Patrick87
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1 answer
Do [US] states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths?
In his statements on the Umpqua Community College shootings (video), President Obama said
We know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun
deaths.
I'm interested to know how strong the evidence is for this.
user69715
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During pregnancy, do babies send stem cells to their mothers to repair organ damage?
This picture is floating around the facebooks with no attribution to an original source (not even a source of the image):
The image says:
During pregnancy, if a mother suffers organ damage, the baby in the womb sends stem cells to repair the…
IQAndreas
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4 answers
Were Hitler and the Nazis obsessed with the occult?
The claim that Hitler and the Nazis were obsessed with the occult is embedded in our pop culture now, and often repeated in documentaries as if it is an established fact. (At least in the kinds of documentaries that run on the History Channel.)
I am…
Scott Hamilton
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Did a Russian Orthodox priest sprinkle holy water on Russia's Central Bank's servers?
Tweet by @bankableInsight (3,639 retweets, 1,662 favorites), reported by the NZ Herald:
This is a Russian priest sprinkling holy water on the central bank's
servers in an attempt to stop the fall of ruble.
Are Russia's central bank's servers…
Golden Cuy
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48
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1 answer
Did Benjamin Franklin perform an experiment by flying a kite in a lightning storm?
Is there any credible evidence that Benjamin Franklin actually did his famous kite experiment?
Devashish Das
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You have the right to one phone call when arrested - A Hollywood myth?
(Image Source)
According to Cracked.com the "one phone call" rule is a Hollywood invention. They base this on the information this attorney gives:
The one phone call is another one of
the urban myths. You may or may not be
permitted to use…
Oliver_C
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1 answer
Do antivirus vendors write viruses for profit?
I think this forum post sums it up nicely:
I think that anti virus companies [...] are the ones who develop most of the viruses on the market today. If you think about it, it does make sence because in order to make a good product, you need to make…
Sklivvz
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4 answers
Does child rearing by homosexual couples have any measurable negative effects?
There is a widespread belief that there are adverse effects on children reared in same-sex-parents households compared to male+female household (I can add random googled cites if necessary, but the existence of laws preventing homosexuals to adopt…
user5341
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Will a bullet be split in half if it hits a butter knife that is fixed in place?
I was reading a manga, and I saw this:
So I was wondering. Will a bullet be split in half if it hits a butter knife that is fixed in place? Have there been experiments to test that?
DarkAjax
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3 answers
Did the Arctic Ice Sheet grow by 60% from 2012 to 2013?
I came across this picture on Facebook.
The image claims to have been taken from a NASA satellite. I am skeptical this is correct, and if it is, does it show the ice sheet has increased in size during this period??
Zonata
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votes
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Are speedometers designed to read high?
Via word-of-mouth, I have twice heard claims that speedometers are deliberately designed to read high, so manufacturers would not be subject to litigation for speeding.
When I first heard this claim, I thought it was simply an excuse to justify…
Douglas S. Stones
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What is the failure rate of Solid-State Drives (SSD)?
One of our favourite StackExchange Overlords, Jeff Atwood, wrote a Coding Horror blog article in May 2011, decrying the unreliability of SSD drives.
Solid state hard drives fail. A lot. And not just any fail. I'm talking about catastrophic,…
Oddthinking
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Do pigs have 30 minute orgasms?
A widely circulated internet meme (see e.g. the oatmeal) states that pig orgasms can last up to 30 minutes.
I've been trying to find any source or reference to back up (or refute) this claim, but haven't been able to find anything.
Juan A. Navarro
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Do cows get blown through the air by tornadoes?
Tornadoes are known to throw 18 wheelers and other large objects into the air. However, most deaths (to humans) are due to debris rather than being thrown by the wind itself.
There are several claims that twisters have lifted cows into the…
Kevin Kostlan
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