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
spot_img

Featured

spot_img
spot_img

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr Flint Dibble wins 2024 Skeptical Activism Ockham award

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

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

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

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

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

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

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