Do you really know?

Bread has been a staple of the human diet for over 10,000 years, when our ancestors made flatbread by baking a mixture of flour and water in the sun. To this day, the vast majority of us eat bread on a regular basis, and many of us eat it every day. But it’s been demonised to some extent in recent years, with many dieters saying it’s made up of “empty calories” and ditching it.  What is the nutrit...

Getting babies to sleep is big business, and a major source of stress for parents. There are many theories and methods: rock them, sing, let them cry it out. But now science has come to the rescue and we can finally put this question to bed. Hopefully.  According to a study published in September 2022 in Current Biology, “approximately 20%–30% of infants cry excessively and exhibit sleep difficult...

You're peacefully drifting off to sleep when suddenly you feel as if you're falling into a void and you startle awake. This rather unpleasant sensation is known as a ‘hypnic jerk’ and is a common occurrence. It is an involuntary muscle spasm, a bit like a hiccup, also known as ‘myoclonus’. Sometimes, this sensation is accompanied by the feeling or the dream that you are falling.  These twitches ar...

Flip phones or ‘dumb’ phones as they are sometimes called are making a comeback but you might be surprised to know that it's gen Z, in other words people born between 1997 and 2010 and not your grandparents who are buying them. Well unlike smartphones, the dumb phone can only make phone calls or send text messages and with only twelve buttons and no predictive text dumbphone users get straight to...

Cooking not only destroys bacteria and germs but also makes food more digestible, especially meat.  It changes the taste, appearance, color, and most importantly, the nutritional quality of the food. While food can be roasted, blanched, grilled, browned, or boiled, some methods are healthier than others. What happens when we grill food? Is steaming really the healthiest way to cook? What about les...

Artificial intelligence has become a cornerstone of modern life, and since ChatGPT's launch in November 2022, its popularity has skyrocketed. A 2024 YouGov survey revealed that 68% of 18-24-year-olds in the UK regularly use generative AI for tasks like research, saving time, and enhancing productivity and creativity. Many workplaces embrace AI, with nearly half of users saying their managers encou...

A white coating on the tongue can occur when your health is compromised, like during a cold or fever. Lifestyle factors such as smoking, excessive alcohol, and too much sugar, coffee, tea, or dairy can also contribute to this by disrupting the balance of your oral microbiota or affecting saliva production. In most cases, it’s an accumulation of bacteria and dead cells, a condition known as saburra...

According to the most recent figures from the Association of British Travel Agents, the number of people going on holidays alone has soared over the last decade. In 2011, the proportion was just 6%, but in 2023 it had risen to 16%. The organisation’s media release said it showed people have a “strong appetite to go it alone”. And you could say the solo travel trend is part of the wider "self-love"...

Have you ever avoided a type of food for a long time, assuming you hated it, only to try it out and then end up having something of a revelation? Think back to when you were a kid and there was a type of vegetable you simply wouldn’t go near, let alone eat. The chances are there’s at least one. It might have been broccoli, Brussels sprouts or spinach for example. Why does that happen then? What ac...

When we hear the term dysmorphia, most of us think about body image, the gap between what we see in the mirror and reality. We’ve talked about Snapchat dysmorphia and body dysmorphia on Do You Really Know in the past. But the concept actually goes beyond physical appearance. Just as our brains can distort how we see our reflection, they can also skew our perception of money. This phenomenon is cal...

Our hair says a lot about our personalities —it’s a core part of our identity. It reflects who we are and how we want the world to perceive us. As noted by British hair historian Caroline Cox in her book Good Hair Days, “A hairstyle is the ultimate form of self-expression. It tells the world who you are—or who you want to be.” This idea highlights the powerful role hair plays in shaping and commun...

Did you know that the alarm clock actually serves a greater purpose than simply rousing us from sleep? Whether it's the buzz of your smartphone, a breaking news update, or a soothing classical tune, your alarm sets the tone for the day ahead. And it can be quite the dilemma choosing between a jolting alarm which is guaranteed you wake you up or nature sounds that might end up lulling you back to s...

There are plenty of ways to get the attention of someone you're crushing on. It might come very naturally to some, but for others, flirting can be an intimidating proposition. Have you ever wondered if someone is flirting with you, because of their somewhat ambiguous approach? Well, they may have been micro-flirting, a technique that dating experts say is used by shy men in particular. And there a...

Being a grafter or hustler is often portrayed in a positive light when it comes to the world of work. But there are a host of negative consequences that can arise when a person becomes a workaholic. The term was invented by American psychologist Wayne Oates back in 1971. Oates said workaholics had “an uncontrollable need to work incessantly”, and called it an addiction. It’s a real mental health c...

The idea might seem inconceivable to some, but these days more and more people are choosing to be in LAT relationships. The LAT part of the term stands for Living Alone Together, which means that LAT couples are in a committed romantic relationship, but each person maintains their own private life and space. Back in 2011, a research team began a multi-method study looking into how prominent LAT co...

Imagine you're at a noisy party. People are everywhere: overlapping conversations, clinking glasses, a constant buzz of sound. And yet, in the middle of all that noise, you suddenly hear your name being called. Instantly, your attention shifts to that one voice. This ability to pick out a specific sound among many others shows how our ears, and especially our brains, can isolate meaningful informa...

Perhaps you've already experienced that awkward feeling on a first date when you don't really know what to say to each other. Having a drink or going to a restaurant are great activities, but they don't always add much to the conversation. So, if you run out of questions you are often just left staring into each other's eyes and hoping for an opportunity to arise so that you might make a quick get...

The condition we’re going to talk about today is pretty rare. It affects around 1% of women, but it can really disrupt the lives of those who suffer from it. Persistent genital arousal disorder, or PGAD for short, was officially identified by the medical community back in 2001, when Sandra Leiblum and Sharon Nathan published an article about it in The Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy. At the tim...

Penis size is often wrongly linked to notions of masculinity, and it’s an issue that causes a lot of insecurity among many men. Now, the term micropenis is used to refer to a penis that falls well below the average size. Bear in mind that from a scientific standpoint, there isn't a strict definition of a normal penis size is. According to Medical News Today, the average penis length is “probably a...

The latest edition of the annual World Happiness Report has been released, offering a fascinating insight into global well-being. Compiled by the Gallup World Poll in collaboration with the University of Oxford and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the report analyzes data from over 140 countries to determine where people are happiest. If you’re familiar with the World Happiness Re...

Humans have long been intrigued by the idea of achieving eternal life, and wondered whether it could ever become possible thanks to medical and technological advances. But in the case of some individuals it seems that it may even be randomly bestowed upon them. Let’s take South Korean man Shin Hyo Myung for example. Ever since he appeared on eNews24 in 2013, he’s been used to being the centre of a...

Millennials - how well, if at all, do you remember the Y2K bug hype? Back in the 1990s, everyone was freaking out about computers crashing when the clock struck midnight on January 1st, 2000.  That was because when computers were first built back in the mid-20th century, they stored years with only two digits instead of four, due to memory limitations. It was feared that when the clock ticked over...

Chewing gum first appeared in the United Kingdom in the year 1911, when AMerican manufacturer William Wrigley founded a British subsidiary. And it’s only become more and more popular as time with time. During World War II, American soldiers traded sticks of gum with European locals for rations. More recently, a widely-cited estimation from the early 2000s suggested there were 28 million regular ch...

After the emergence of ‘quiet quitting’, it's now the turn of quiet hiring. And although the term is relatively new, the practice is not. The term "quiet hiring" first appeared in the report "9 Future of Work Trends for 2023" published at the end of 2022 by Emily McRae, a philosophy professor in New Mexico, USA.  She explains that this phenomenon follows on from the quiet quitting craze that emerg...

Bed bugs are small, blood-sucking insects that can infest your luggage, clothing, bedding and furniture. They are not only a nuisance, but can also cause allergic reactions, skin infections and psychological distress. Bed bugs are not a sign of poor hygiene or low-quality accommodation; they can be found anywhere, from luxury hotels to budget hostels and since the arrival of airbnb most big cities...