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1500 questions
30
votes
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Is biting a gold coin a working method to verify its authenticity?
Julia Murray & Kelsey Serwa
In movies you commonly see treasure hunters, pirates, thieves, ...
bite down on a gold coin to verify it's real gold.
(Gold Medal winners often pose with the medal between their teeth, and I'm guessing it derives from…
Oliver_C
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Is drinking tea after a meal unhealthy?
There is a popular belief that drinking tea shortly after meal can cause health problems and is also dangerous to anemic people.
Drinking tea just after a meal restricts the body's absorption of iron (Fe) consumed with the meal. [...] Tea or coffee…
2hamed
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Are psychopaths more intelligent than people in general?
A common trope in popular culture regarding psychopaths is that they are above average to extremely intelligent. Granted, smart psychopaths make for a more interesting villain (or anti-heroes), but this seems to be a common assumption even in…
Zano
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Do dairy products cause phlegm to build or thicken?
It is a common advice, perpetuated by many parents, and even some doctors, that if you have a cold, you should avoid dairy products, because they cause phlegm to build up or thicken. See e.g. Foods that cause mucus buildup.
Do they (and if they do,…
Suma
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Is it dangerous to throw a coin off a building?
A long time ago I had this discussion with some people if throwing a coin of a building is dangerous (potentially deadly) if it hits someone. The height of the building should be skyscraper-like so the coin could reach 'terminal velocity'.
From the…
Baarn
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Was NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter lost because engineering teams used different measuring units?
I read in a book that NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter was lost on September 23, 1999, at a cost of $125 million, because one engineering team used metric units, while another one used inches for a key spacecraft operation.
Was it really a conversion…
splattne
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Was it common to perform surgeries on babies without anesthesia because doctors felt they weren't "conscious enough to feel pain"?
The claim was made on parenting.se that "not so long ago, babies were operated on without anaesthetic because they weren't considered 'conscious' enough to feel pain".*
A Google search revealed several other references to this claim.
I've heard of…
Beofett
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Did Marcus Aurelius say "Live a good life"?
Is the attribution of this quote to Marcus Aurelius correct?
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods,…
user4673
30
votes
3 answers
CSI image resolution enhance: How real is it?
So I watched the following 1 minute long Youtube clip from CSI New York. In the clip, using what seems to be the recording from a standard bank camera, they zoom in at least 100, and see the image of the culprit in the reflection of the eye of the…
user3260
30
votes
2 answers
Is it illegal in the U.S. for legal professionals to answer legal questions on public Internet forums?
A SE moderator said:
[I]n the US, at least, legal professionals are not permitted to answer questions on a site like this.
It seems odd that a law would prohibit someone who has passed a Bar exam from answering questions in a public forum. It also…
Flimzy
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Do you use only 14 muscles to smile but 43 to frown?
I have heard this claim many times
You use 14 muscles to smile and 43 to frown
But I have never seen any actual proof of this and always assumed it was just one of those midwest folksy sayings.
Is there any truth too it?
Chad
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Can you be suffocated from being smothered by a pillow?
We've all seen it in movies. A villian suffocates one of his/her victims with a pillow while they sleep, killing them in a matter if a minute or so.
Whenever I've pushed my head into a pillow as far as it will go, I can still breathe. I even asked…
OghmaOsiris
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Was a Russian tank photographed during the 1956 Hungarian revolution destroyed in Ukraine in 2023?
I have found this image on a meme website (9gag). If true, the story is fascinating in multiple ways, but I have not been able to find any reliable sources.
Are the two tanks in the two pictures the same tank?
Was the tank indeed destroyed in…
Neinstein
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Can human body heat cause a mobile phone's battery to "run down at a faster rate"?
The average 98.6 degree Fahrenheit body heat of a human being when transmitted through a cloth pocket to a cell phone inside is enough to speed up chemical processes inside the phone's battery. As a result, it runs down at a faster rate.
20 Facts…
Rebecca J. Stones
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Does Apple have more cash reserves than the U.S. government?
There are stories like this floating in the internet.
Apple is now more liquid than the United States government, the Financial Post reports.
As the government struggles to resolve the debt ceiling debate, the operating balance in Washington is at…
Vinoth Kumar C M
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