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We may earn a commission from links on this page. Every few decades, the pop culture machine spits out a person who purports to have supernatural powers. In the 1980s, it was spoon-bending swami Uri Geller. In the 1990s and 2000s, it was “mediums” like John Edward, who supposedly talked to people’s dead relatives. In 2025, we have Oz Pearlman. To be fair, unlike the rest of these examples, Pearlman doesn't claim supernatural powers himself, but a lot of people seem to be taking his stage patter explanation for his mentalist tricks as the unvarnished truth. They're wrong. Oz (pronounced “Oh’s”) has a hell of a schtick. The 43-year-old dude seems like an unassuming nerd, un…

We are less than two weeks away from the 95th anniversary of the discovery of Pluto, the ice-caked, rocky sphere orbiting around 3.7 billion miles from the sun. To mark the occasion, The Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, where Pluto was discovered, is hosting its sixth annual "I Heart Pluto" festival. But should they? Is Pluto even a planet? According to a recent YouGov poll, 35% of Americans think Pluto is not a planet. It's something else, according to them. But they are all wrong—kind of. To get to the bottom of Pluto's planet status, I tracked down planetary scientist Dr. Will Grundy—who you might recognize from academic papers like "Measurement of D/H and 13…

A recent YouTube video from channel The Ultimate Discovery makes some claims that might surprise fans of actor Gene Hackman. According to the video, FBI agents searching Hackman's home following his death discovered a "hidden passageway concealed behind the library wall" that led to a "vast, eerie underground warehouse" containing documents, antiques, old photographs, and parts of unidentifiable machines. The walls were covered in runes and symbols that seem to be of ancient origin and could not be translated. Not only that, the bunker connects to larger network of tunnels, "similar to the catacombs of Paris." It's a pretty good story (if you can swallow the pre…

I'm posting this on March 17,St. Patrick's Day, the day we celebrate the patron saint of Ireland, and Irishness in general, by dancing to accordion-and-fiddle-based music, dyeing a river green, and enjoying a wee drink or three. But there's a lot people get wrong about the holiday, so allow me to clear up some myths. St. Patrick's Day wasn't always a day for partyingThe association between boozing it up and March 17 is relatively recent. St. Patrick's Day was observed in Ireland as early as the ninth century but it was largely a somber remembrance, not a celebration—it marks the anniversary of St. Patrick's death, after all. It was a day when the dietary restrictions of L…

This week, people are wrong about teleportation. A common science fiction trope, teleportation is the transfer of matter or energy from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them. Widely repeated claims of teleportation have been cropping up since at least 1583, when occultist John Dee supposedly vanished from his home in England and reappeared at the same moment in Prague. The most recent report comes from Gregg Phillips, who was appointed to lead FEMA's office of response and recovery in December. On a January episode of the Onward podcast, Phillips said, "I was with my boys one time, and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House...t…

This story seems straight out of a Hollywood thriller: Up to a dozen scientists working on some of the U.S.’s most advanced and sensitive aerospace and nuclear programs have disappeared or died in mysterious ways over the last five years. The FBI is working with the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and local law enforcement to find answers. The House Oversight Committee launched its own investigation. Congressman Eric Burlison said the mystery has “all the hallmarks of a foreign operation.” The president called it “pretty serious stuff." Congressman James Comer suggested someone is targeting the nation’s nuclear program. Rep. Tim Burchett alleged a cover-…

This week, there has been a lot of chatter in the weirder parts of the online world about the supposed discovery of a hidden complex of underground chambers beneath the Great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt. It seems a team of researchers announced they'd used SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) to reveal a number of underground buildings beneath the Khafre Pyramid. This discovery could offer proof the ancient Egyptian civilization was far more advanced than is generally believed, and possessed technology that rivals our own. It could change everything we think we know about humanity itself! In other words, big if true. Spoiler: It's not true though. All signs point to the “discov…

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. With Halloween around the corner, let's take a look at a spooky and supposedly true story going viral this week. Recently, a 911 call surfaced of a North Carolina man calling authorities because he thought he saw a bloody man by the side of a desolate country road. While he was speaking to the operator, something landed in the bed of his pickup truck, causing the 911 caller to start screaming "It's not human! It's not human!" Check out the video: My first reaction upon seeing this was the same as yours: …

Because it’s Christmas time, I’ve been digging into myths and misconceptions we have about the holiday: Yuletide misinformation is rampant, and I’m setting the record straight. Last week I dug into who Santa Claus really is, with side quests about St. Nicholas bringing children back from the dead and the religious war between Santa and Kris Kringle. One thing I didn't talk about? His elves. Christmas elves feel like they’ve been around forever, and people have strangely consistent ideas of what they’re all about—they’re small, they wear green, they make toys out of some innate magical compulsion, they love shelves— but that variety of elf is a recent invention; “real” el…

A lot of people are wrong about low testosterone. The "low testosterone" hashtag on TikTok features over 20,000 videos from real doctors, fake doctors, real doctors who seem like fake doctors, bodybuilders, wellness weirdoes, straight-up scammers, and, seemingly, everyone else. Some of the content is accurate, some is wildly inaccurate, some is in the middle, but the overall impression is a confusing miasma where solid medical information is given equal space with people recommending boosting your testosterone by exposing your privates to direct sunlight for 10 minutes a day. So let's clear this up a little. What low testosterone actually isTestosterone is a hormone prod…

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. Are you ready for The Rapture and the days of turmoil to follow? Because, if some corners of the Evangelical Christian community online are correct, it's happening today (or maybe tomorrow) just in time for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish feast of The Presidentets. Whether true believers will meet Jesus up in the air this week remains to be seen, so I'm keeping an open mind, but I wanted to lay out what to expect, should the Rapture occur. According to the New King James translation of 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, "T…

It’s Christmas time, so I’m taking a look at myths related to the holiday. Last week, I focused on myths about Jesus. This week I’m taking a look at that other beloved Christmas icon: Santa Claus, the central figure in the secular holiday mascot pantheon, who is so mysterious, we can’t even agree on his real name. I’m sure he’s innocent of any crimes, but Santa has many aliases. Among many other sobriquets and honorifics, the guy who brings presents in December goes by Jolly Old St. Nicholas, Kris Kringle, Père Noël, and Father Christmas. That’s a lot of fake identities, but what is his real name? And who invented him? Did Coca-Cola invent Santa Claus?There is an often …

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. While sometimes there's a big piece of misinformation that a lot of people latch onto—like The Rapture or the existence of "MedBeds"—the fractured nature of the information sphere has all but killed the overarching conspiracy theory. No longer do big ideas like "we never went to the moon" unite the dumbest minds; instead, the algorithm creates bespoke conspiracy theories. So instead of joining the Flat Earth Society, you might think the actual year is 1728, or that AI secretly imagined a British comedian fro…

Season's greetings and all that. In honor of this most special time of the year, I'm taking a look at commonly held Christmas myths and misconceptions. I busted a ton of Jesus myths a couple weeks ago, then got secular and finally revealed the truth about Santa Claus, so this week I'm doing a round-up of seasonal misinformation, both religious and secular. Religious Christmas mythsJesus was born in a stableThe Gospels aren't specific about where where Jesus was born, other than "Bethlehem." Here's how Luke 2:4–7 is traditionally translated: "And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room f…

The Artemis II moon mission was a full success. Its crew of four astronauts splashed down safely on earth last week after traveling further into outer space than any humans before them. Like most Americans, I followed the mission with a sense of wonder and pride that felt out-of-place in 2026–this was actual history being made, and even my blackened heart swelled. But not everyone was excited; some people are not buying this whole "orbiting the moon" thing and are convinced that the mission never happened. Everyone is lying, the images and videos we've seen are bogus, and spaceflight doesn't even make sense. I've spent a lot of time digging into the many conspiracy theo…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Nothing is really new in conspiracy theories, but the churning morass of social media sometimes mixes up new combinations of old nonsense that bubbles up to the surface unexpectedly. Lately, interest in "Grabovoi codes" or "Grabovoi numbers" is high. The CIA is supposedly hiding Grabovoi codes, strings of numbers that one can concentrate upon in order to cure disease, get rich, and manifest a new car. This video, for instance, has been viewed over a million times in the last couple weeks: "You can search 'quantum healing codes' at the CIA.gov website and it has many different codes for many different things," This TikT…

It's Christmas time, and people believe a lot of inaccurate things about the holiday, so for the next few weeks, I'm going to take a look at the truth behind Christmas mythology, starting with the biggest misconception of them all: Not "how can the North Pole support an industrial infrastructure large enough to build toys for all the world's children," but whether Jesus was really born on Dec. 25. Was Jesus born on Dec. 25?Most Christians celebrate the Baby J's birthday on Dec. 25, but he probably wasn't born on that day. The Bible doesn't provide a specific date, neither does any historical document, and early Christians didn't even celebrate Christmas. So Jesus could …

Trigger warning: I’m going to write about the upcoming midterm elections—but if it helps, I’m not going to be partisan about it. This should be a pretty straightforward topic, but lately social media has been rife with speculation that the upcoming midterm elections will somehow be canceled. And while election-related fear-mongering is hardly new, it’s usually a dull buzz. This year, whether you blame exponential cultural polarization, social media echo chambers, or the rain, election-cancelation fears have grown into an unmistakeable roar. It's alarming to be sure. But are the people who are worried about this stuff wrong, or was 2024 actually the last "free and fair" A…

Apple brought RCS (Rich Communication Services) messaging to the iPhone with iOS 18 last year, giving green-bubble users access to more features and functions. But what exactly is possible with RCS on the iPhone, and what is still exclusive to iMessage users? Are Android RCS users now fully integrated into chats in the iOS Messages app or not? I'll lay out exactly what you can do in RCS chats between iPhones and Android phones, and explain which features are still missing—and when you might be able to get them. If you've got contacts on other mobile platforms, this should help you understand more about what the experience is like from their end. To use RCS, you must have…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Sleep tracking apps promise better rest through data. But what happens when the pursuit of a perfect score keeps you up at night? For a growing number of people, that Apple Watch, Oura Ring, or whatever device meant to improve your sleep quality may be doing just the opposite. Here’s what to know about how sleep scores really work, and what you can do to make the most of your sleep tracker. The benefits (and accuracy) of sleep trackingSleep is foundational to almost every dimension of health, including “improved mood, heart health, and cognitive function," according to Dr. Rebecca Robbins, Assistant Professor in the Divisi…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. It looks like Strava is making moves to become more than just a social fitness tracker. The popular fitness app—arguably the best one of its kind—announced Thursday that it has acquired The Breakaway, an AI-powered cycling training app, marking its second major acquisition in just over a month. This follows Strava's purchase of Runna back in April. So, what do these acquisitions mean for users of The Breakaway and Strava alike? Will those apps' specific training plans become available a part of the Strava subscription? Will I have to pay for that whether I like it or not? Here's what you need to know. What The Breakaway br…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. The founders of Runna announced today that Strava has bought their company. Runna is a paid running app that provides structured training plans (which I personally loved when I tried it), while Strava is a hugely popular tracking and social app for runners and cyclists, with both a free and a paid tier. Runna customers don’t seem to be thrilled, but Runna’s founders say that the app and its team will stay independent, and they’re optimistic for the future. What is changing right now? Runna’s founders say “no immediate changes [are] planned other than sensible integrations (e.g., the ability to sign in with Strava).” No e…

The 12-3-30 workout has taken over TikTok, which is a testament to the algorithm and a few influencers’ abilities to game it. It’s really just treadmill walking, with specific parameters and overblown promises. So let’s break down the pros, cons, and caveats—and make a plan for how to do a similar workout that makes sense for you. What is the 12-3-30 workout?It’s walking on a treadmill with the incline maxed out. In other words, you’ll be walking uphill. You set the incline to 12% (the highest you can go on many treadmills), the speed to 3.0 miles per hour (a pretty typical walking speed for most of us on flat ground) and you do it for 30 minutes. Its popularizer, Lauren…