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Breakfast is not the most important meal of the day
The randomised trials point gently the other way. But the real story is the audit that found only 17% of citations to a key trial described its results accurately.
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Tech
The sleep chart everyone copies has a footnote nobody reads
The age-by-age sleep chart is a compromise document, and the panels that wrote it said so. What the primary sources actually show about how much sleep you need.
Health
The 21-day habit rule came from a plastic surgeon’s book preface
Maxwell Maltz was describing how long patients took to get used to a new face. When researchers finally measured habit formation, the range ran from 18 days to 254.
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Stretching Barely Prevents Injuries. Strength Training Cuts Them by Two Thirds.
A meta-analysis of 26,000 participants ranked the injury-prevention strategies head to head. The one everybody does came last. The one almost nobody does came first, by a mile.
The 50% Divorce Rate Was True for About One Year. You Can Name It.
In 1981 the United States recorded 2,422,000 marriages and 1,213,000 divorces. Divide one by the other and you get 50.1%. It was also the peak year. The statistic has not been updated since.
Sugar Does Not Make Children Hyperactive. The Study That Proved It Tested the Parents.
A 1995 meta-analysis of 23 controlled trials found no effect. A year earlier, a smaller study had already explained why everyone believes otherwise — by giving every child a placebo and lying to their mothers.
FICO Has a Page Called "Myth Busting." Almost Nobody Has Read It.
The company that makes the score has published, in writing, that carrying a balance does not help it. Its own survey found 67% of Americans wrong or unsure about what the score can even see.
Sport news
The 50% Divorce Rate Was True for About One Year. You Can Name It.
In 1981 the United States recorded 2,422,000 marriages and 1,213,000 divorces. Divide one by the other and you get 50.1%. It was also the peak year. The statistic has not been updated since.
What ‘just go for a walk’ leaves out
The evidence on exercise and depression is weaker than the headlines and more interesting than the sceptics allow. It points at structure and supervision, not walks.
The 21-day habit rule came from a plastic surgeon’s book preface
Maxwell Maltz was describing how long patients took to get used to a new face. When researchers finally measured habit formation, the range ran from 18 days to 254.
FICO Has a Page Called "Myth Busting." Almost Nobody Has Read It.
The company that makes the score has published, in writing, that carrying a balance does not help it. Its own survey found 67% of Americans wrong or unsure about what the score can even see.
The four-day week trials mostly didn’t test a four-day week
The pilots cut about four hours a week, not eight. Iceland never ran one. And the best-instrumented trial found healthier workers, unchanged revenue, and a significantly faster pace of work.
Recipes
What ‘just go for a walk’ leaves out
The evidence on exercise and depression is weaker than the headlines and more interesting than the sceptics allow. It points at structure and supervision, not walks.
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In 1998 Millions of Americans Became Overweight Overnight. Nobody Gained Weight.
BMI was named in 1972, in a study of 7,424 men, as a tool for comparing populations. Twenty-six years later a committee moved one number and changed who counted as healthy.
Nobody Selling You a Detox Can Tell You What They Are Removing
A group of scientists rang fifteen detox companies and asked one question: which toxin does this remove? Not one could answer. The regulators have been making the same point in court for twenty years.
FICO Has a Page Called "Myth Busting." Almost Nobody Has Read It.
The company that makes the score has published, in writing, that carrying a balance does not help it. Its own survey found 67% of Americans wrong or unsure about what the score can even see.