Do you really know?

American psychiatrist Stephen B. Karpman coined this social model of human interaction in 1968. It describes the roles that we take on in unbalanced social relations. Relations which lead us to take one of three roles within Karpman’s triangle. These are three roles in Karpman's triangle. These are the victim, the persecutor and the saviour. And the role we take on unconsciously leads someone else...

If you’re asking yourself whether cracking your knuckles is a bad thing, we'll take it as a given that you do crack your knuckles. You’ve probably also been told at some point that doing so will give you arthritis, most likely by someone already annoyed at you doing it! So, just how seriously should you be taking the know-it-alls? As you’re probably aware, many people find the noise pretty off-put...

The Japanese concept of Ikigai roughly translates as “reason for being”, like . The “Iki” part means life, while “gai” refers to value or worth. So it effectively means finding a purpose to life and the things we spend our time doing.  This philosophy dates back to the 12th century, but has been gaining in popularity among Westerners in recent years. That’s in particular thanks to the 2017 release...

The strange experience of deja vu sometimes lasts just a matter of milliseconds. Nonetheless it can still catch you off guard and be pretty unsettling. Deja vu means “already seen” in French. It refers to the sense of having already seen or experienced something you’re confronted with, even though you know that you have never actually seen it before. For example, you visit a new city for the first...

Following a bitter and highly divisive campaign, marked by fake news and attacks between the two leading candidates, Brazil has a new president. Well, maybe “new” isn’t exactly the right word. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva already served two terms as president from 2003 to 2010. Now the man once referred to as “the most popular politician in the world” by Barack Obama has made a sensational comeback,...

Remember, remember the 5th of November. Gunpowder treason and plot. On the 5th November there are fireworks displays all over England. In some places they still have a bonfire and will burn a guy on it. Listen to our episode to find out who this guy represents. This is an effigy of a human named after Guy Fawkes who, in the early hours of the 5th of November 1605, was arrested for the Gunpowder Pl...

What are you most attracted to when looking for someone to date? Social status? A sense of humour? Good looks? Those are all positive traits for sure, but for sapioseuxals there’s one quality which trumps all others, and that’s intelligence. The word comes from the Latin word “sapien”, which means wise. Sapiosexuals don’t fall in love at first sight or even through an emotional spark. Rather, they...

It’s been two years since we last discussed the Amazon on Do You Really Know, and even in that time, the outlook for the world’s largest tropical rainforest has worsened significantly. A report called “Amazonia against the Clock” was released in September, warning that the rainforest could reach a point of no return as soon as 2025. A study published in Nature Climate Change journal in March 2022...

Picture this. You’re in a fine art museum, admiring some of the greatest masterpieces of all time, and all of a sudden someone throws a can of soup over one of them. Sounds pretty surreal, right? Well that’s exactly the scene that visitors to London’s National Gallery found themselves confronted with on 14th October 2022. So what happened? Two young women threw tomato soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowe...

Covid has swept the globe sparing very few, in fact some people have had covid multiple times. But then there are some lucky people who have never had it even if they work or live with infected people. According to research from the University of Oxford and University of California, this might be due to a particular gene mutation that effectively makes them immune. Well, sort of. It is a bit more...

Health professionals have warned against the dangers of puff bars on younger consumers for some time now. This recent phenomenon has become massively popular with young people, and especially on TikTok. Puff bars, also known as vape pens or pod mods, are flavoured electronic cigarettes designed for one-time use. Social networks have been flooded with puff bars of all different colours. From far aw...

Halloween is here and if you’re anything like us, you’ll be frantically doing some last-minute pumpkin carving or stocking up on sweets for trick-or-treaters. Maybe you’re going to a Halloween party dressed up as a ghost, witch or any other kind of spooky creature. But have you ever wondered where all these quirky customs came from? While Halloween seems like a very modern celebration, its origins...

“Spring forward, fall back” goes the saying; that’s right - today, Sunday the 30th of October 2022, saw the clocks go back an hour, meaning it gets dark earlier all of a sudden and winter is on its way! If there’s one day, or rather two days, of the year where you don’t want to schedule any important appointments, it’s on a day when the clock changes. Forgetting the time change is something that’s...

With Halloween right around the corner, find out about the not-so-spooky internet behavior we all hate: ghosting. Listen to our rerun episode! Ghosting is a modern slang term for ceasing all communication without any warning or explanation. It’s likely happened to you in the past at some point, and you may well have ghosted someone yourself! The term was first added to dating jargon in the 2000s,...

The nipples are an erogenous zone for many people. But as it turns out, having them touched can bring on a whole other kind of feeling for others. The so-called sad nipple syndrome has been discussed more openly on Reddit and Tiktok in the last few years, raising awareness. But it still remains somewhat of a mystery. It refers to a wave of negative emotions on a person when their nipples are touch...

You’ve no doubt heard references to the existence of body clocks, and it’s no surprise because all of our bodily functions are regulated by the circadian system. To put it simply, our circadian rhythms optimise bodily functions. In this episode, we explain why it is important. They are managed by a master clock known as the circadian pacemaker which is formed of around 20,000 neurons. It’s situate...

Ghost stories told around a camp fire, visiting a haunted house or watching a scary film are all common Halloween activities. We clearly enjoy scaring each-other and feeling scared, even though it seems completely counter intuitive. There are a number of reasons for this, which we'll explore in the episode. Fear is an emotional response to danger, both real or perceived. Our body releases a mixtur...

The energy crisis is still going on in all of Europe. The price of oil and gas is worrying governments as the cold winter months get closer. In this episode, we delve into the history of energy and explain what an oil shock is. For over a century, oil has been both a fuel and a barometer for the world economy. But it can also be a double-edged sword as Western countries found out in the 1970s. At...

Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022, her son Prince Charles became King at the age of 73. He inherited the many titles that his mother carried throughout her 70-year reign, one of which is the “Defender of the Faith”. That refers to his role as the supreme governor of the Church of England. In 2009, the Church of England stated it had over 26 million baptised members accoun...

Diarrhea is a common ailment that affects many of us, from time to time. While it’s often the subject of off-colour jokes, in reality it’s the number two cause of death in children under five years old, after pneumonia. It accounts for over 500,000 child deaths each year according to the World Health Organisation, making it a major public health issue. The majority of these cases are recorded in t...

The great un-retirement is a term that has been coined to explain the fact that people are working longer or even coming out of retirement completely to return to work. Find out why this is happening in this episode. In a poll by Rest Less, a digital community that supports the over-50s, 32% of members said they would consider returning to work or that they were already working again. And statisti...

The K-Pop band BTS made headlines recently: its members are due to enroll in South Korea's mandatory military service. Listen to our rerun episode to learn more about K-Pop and its origins. K-Pop is a form of pop music originating in South Korea. You've probably heard songs from the famous K-Pop boy band, BTS. With their flashy looks and extravagant hairstyles, the members of BTS, also known as th...

Interviewed by Harper's Bazaar in June 2022, US First Lady Jill Biden admitted to arguing over text with her husband. She said it’s been a good way for them to settle disagreements, away from the ears of secret service agents and everyone around them. Arguing by text is also known as fexting, which is a contraction of fighting and texting. Of course, it isn’t only the President and his wife who fe...

On 4th October 2022, Saudi Arabia was named as host country for the 2029 Asian Winter Games. The event takes place every four years, bringing together 10,000 athletes from all across the continent. The 2029 event will take place at the Trojena resort within the futuristic city of Neom, which is being developed in the middle of the desert. The name is a contraction of neo, which means new in Greek,...

This week on Do You Really Know?, we're all about tech. In constant evolution, digital technologies are shaping the world we live in today and are revolutionising our daily lives. To learn more about this, listen to our rerun episodes about tech! We all know how the internet links people between each other and devices between each other. Well, that’s not the end of it, as these days researchers ar...