Trending Now
World news
The Vitamin D Trials Nobody Talks About
Two of the largest supplement trials ever run found almost nothing. Then the Endocrine Society withdrew the threshold that made half the country deficient in the first place.
Travel guides
Tech
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.
Health
Sugar Does Not Make Children Hyperactive. The Study That Proved It...
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.
Most popular
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sport news
No Sleep Guideline Anywhere Says Eight Hours
The official number is "seven or more" — a floor with no ceiling. When researchers measured sleep in three societies without electric light, every group averaged under seven.
Where the three-to-six-month emergency fund rule actually came from
The most repeated number in personal finance was set in 1996 by polling 156 advisers. Six million households of bank data suggest a very different answer.
Blue-Light Glasses: What the Cochrane Review Found
Seventeen randomised trials, and no reliable evidence that blue-filtering lenses reduce eye strain. The physics is the more interesting part: the lenses block roughly eight percent more blue light than the clear ones.
The Open Office Was Built on a Measurement. Then Nobody Measured It Again for...
When researchers finally put sensors on employees before and after a redesign, face-to-face interaction fell by about 70%. The study did not measure productivity — and after six decades of fit-outs, almost nothing has.
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.
Recipes
No health authority has ever recommended 10,000 steps
Every official physical activity guideline is written in minutes, not steps. A 1965 pedometer brand name filled the gap — and it is aimed at exactly the wrong people.
LATEST ARTICLES
Latest article
No Sleep Guideline Anywhere Says Eight Hours
The official number is "seven or more" — a floor with no ceiling. When researchers measured sleep in three societies without electric light, every group averaged under seven.
Your Metabolism Does Not Slow Down at 30. It Holds Steady Until 63.
A study of 6,421 people across 29 countries mapped human energy expenditure from eight days old to 95. It found four life phases. None of them begins at 30.
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.