Placebo Effect

The evidence for pill colour impacting placebo effects gets flimsier the more you examine it

Mike Hall -
The idea that the colour of a pill influences what placebo response you get is based on a succession of badly designed or badly interpreted trials
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Paranormal

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Archive

From the archives: The Art of Fakery – Fakes and forgeries at the British Museum

Mike Howgate -
From the archives in 1990, Mike Howgate on the British Museum's exhibition of fakery, from the Cottingley fairies to the "true cross"
Wellness

Menstrual masking: the inadvisable trend of treating acne… with period blood

Alice Howarth -
Menstrual masking - or using period blood as a beauty product - is just the latest in a line of dubious wellness trends based on the body's waste products
Archive

From the archives: The Weight of Evidence – Gyroscopes can’t levitate UFOs

Dave Love -
From the archives in 1990, Dave Love explains the physics of gyroscopes after a scientific paper claimed the devices could generate lift
Psychology

The Sullivanians, psychoanalysis, and the worst therapy in the world

Carlos Orsi -
Based on the now-discredited teachings of Sigmund Freud, psychoanalysis quickly took on all the trappings of a cult, complete with infallible, abusive leaders
Skepticism

Dr Flint Dibble wins 2024 Skeptical Activism Ockham award

Michael Marshall -
Dr Flint Dibble, an archaeologist who debated and debunk lost city of Atlantis claims, has received the 2024 Ockham Award for Skeptical Activism.
Skepticism

Elon Musk beats Dragon’s Den star Steven Bartlett to Rusty Razor pseudoscience award

Michael Marshall -
Twitter owner Elon Musk has beaten Dragon's Den star Steven Bartlett to the Rusty Razor award for worst pseudoscience of 2024
Politics

The tyranny of the cloud: how we became serfs to big tech

Ted Lefroy -
In ‘Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism’, Yanis Varoufakis gives a whistlestop tour of economic history and where capitalism went wrong
Health

The secret to a year-round tan – eating so many carrots you turn orange?

Alice Howarth -
Viral claims suggest a new way to give your skin that sun-kissed glow: eating so many carrots you turn orange from carotenosis.

Alternative Medicine

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Science

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Society

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Expert skeptical analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and claims of the paranormal.

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