Do you really know?

If you're not up to date with your vaccinations, it might just be time to schedule an appointment with your doctor! When it comes to the diseases we’re going to be talking about today, you could be forgiven for thinking they were a thing of the past, consigned to history.  But believe it or not, some of them are making a comeback in the 21st century. Their resurgence can be partly explained by a f...

Last weekend brought snowfall across much of the United Kingdom, offering a clear sign that winter is here. Now with temperatures this low, the instinct for many of us may be to cuddle up in bed under a blanket. But the subject of today’s episode is all about getting outdoors whatever the weather. Friluftsliv is a Norwegian term that more or less translates as “open-air living”. You could call it...

We talk about hormones a lot on Do You Really Know, so if you’ve tuned in before, you may well already be aware that cortisol is known as the stress hormone, and it’s what helps us wake up first thing in the morning.  That’s because it’s released in large amounts between 7 and 8 a.m. and then gradually decreases over the course of the day, hitting its lowest point around 11 p.m, just in time for u...

Affectionately known as Nessie, the mythical Loch Ness Monster has been a source of fascination and terror for many centuries. Many sightings have been reported over the years, but no conclusive evidence of its existence has ever been unearthed. Still, there are many believers out there. In late August 2023, the largest Nessie hunt in 50 years took place, organised by the local Loch Ness Explorati...

April 2024 saw a couple in the south of France handed a one-year suspended sentence, and a ban from having pets, after they were discovered keeping 159 cats and seven dogs in their 860 sq foot apartment. According to BBC News, the “animals were discovered last year living in filth, many dehydrated, suffering from malnutrition or infected with parasites.”That shocking animal hoarding case seems to...

You have to navigate an almost endless list of uncertainties when raising a child, and it’s hard to figure out the best approach to parenting. At one end of the spectrum, you’ve got so-called helicopter parents, who micromanage every aspect of their children’s lives, and at the other end parents who are so hands-off that some label them as lazy. Maybe sometimes they are lazy. But in other cases, l...

In the period from 2018 to 2020, the life expectancy at birth for women in the UK was 82.9 years, while it was just 79 for men. That’s according to data from the Office of National Statistics. And that disparity is a common trend across various countries and even among certain other species of mammals, like great apes. There certainly are, and they span both biological and behavioral factors. Dr....

If you have heard of Munchausen Syndrome before, it’s far more likely you’ve seen it represented in popular culture than in real life. Like a lot of psychological syndromes, it’s used as a dramatic device in many films and series, like Sharp Objects or The Politician to name just a couple.  The most recent example is The Act, which was created by Nick Antosca and Michelle Dean, and first appeared...

What is the Streisand effect? Entertainment icon Barbra Streisand celebrated her 80th birthday on 24th April 2022. The actress, director, producer and musician has been in the public eye since the age of 20 and belongs to a very select group known as EGOT winners. That means she’s won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. Her dazzling career has seen her sell over 150 million albums worldwide, a...

One of the biggest indirect impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic has been that on people’s mental health. Limited social interactions have led to feelings of loneliness increasing for many, all across the world. In light of this, it comes as no surprise that people have been actively seeking friendships and connections with others more than ever before. Data from Tinder suggests that the average numbe...

You’ve probably seen ads online promising easy money—“Make up to £300 a day using just your phone! Join me and change your life” It sounds tempting but here's the catch, most of the time, these claims are a scam designed to pull you into a pyramid scheme, afterall if making money online were that easy, we’d all be doing it. Pyramid schemes often masquerade as legitimate Multi-Level Marketing (MLM)...

You may remember that we discussed the idea of intersectionality in a previous episode of Do You Really Know?. The term describes how characteristics like race, class, gender, sexual orientation and physical ability “intersect” when it comes to social discrimination. Well, today we’re going to talk about a more recent term for the unique type of discrimination that black women face: misogynoir. Ju...

Distractions in the workplace are almost endless, from Slack group notifications to questions from colleagues to the dozen or more tabs you’ve got open in your browser. By the time your next meeting comes along, you realise two hours have passed and you’ve barely done any productive work at all.  Sound familiar? Thankfully there’s a method to improve your efficiency and concentration which may hel...

Astrology has had a real revival in these last few years, in particular among the younger generations. You may remember we ran an episode on the subject not long ago. Most likely you’ve heard your friends talk about astrology at some point in time, or read about it online. Maybe someone in your family started using a specific term as part of their everyday vocabulary. Well, we’re here to decipher...

Some theories in evolutionary psychology propose that men are better at spatial navigation than women due to evolutionary factors. In prehistoric times, men, as hunters, traversed long distances, while women stayed closer to the home.   This difference supposedly led to natural selection favouring genes in men associated with better spatial navigation skills. However, these theories have been wide...

Barbie has quite the impressive CV. She has had over 150 careers including fashion editor, surgeon and astronaut - enough to inspire any young fan. But what she has career-wise, she lacks when it comes to inclusivity. Barbie is usually blond, perfect and impossibly proportioned - there is a reason Margo Robbie is playing her in the latest Barbie film. But this is finally going to change: Barbie is...

Not long ago we talked about the Pygmalion effect in an episode of Do You Really Know? Well today’s subject is pretty much the exact opposite! The Golem effect is the idea that negative words or assumptions can influence behaviours and transform those assumptions into reality. It’s another type of self-fulfilling prophecy, which sees lower expectations lead to poorer performance and behaviour in i...

According to The Cleveland Clinic, around one in four people are affected by bad breath. It’s also known as halitosis and bad breath can be a source of embarrassment. It’s sometimes caused by consuming certain well-known foods, like garlic, onion, cheese, and coffee for example.  But it can also be a symptom of an underlying health condition, such as pneumonia, gum recession, kidney disease and ga...

“I can’t wait for us to get married;” “Let’s travel the world together;” “We’re going to have two kids and buy that apartment across the street” When you’re in a romantic relationship, it can be genuinely heartwarming to hear your partner paint a vibrant picture of days ahead. But what about if it happens much earlier than you expected - say on your second or third date? Usually at that stage, you...

Each of us has our own unique experience of social bonds, influenced by our childhood, previous relationships, and personality. And there’s actually a psychological theory that helps explain how we experience our relationships: attachment theory. In psychology, attachment is the strong bond between an individual and an "attachment figure." In most cases, our first attachment figure is the parent w...

The number of free-to-use ATMs in the UK has been steadily declining, with a 6% drop from 2022 to mid-2023. This reflects a shift in consumer habits, as cash usage has decreased significantly. For example, weekly ATM withdrawals fell by nearly a third, from £2.2 billion in 2019 to £1.5 billion in 2023. The shift began years ago but accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, cash accounted...

What is Wikipedia? Thanks for asking!  OK so everybody already knows what Wikipedia is, but let’s look closer at its history, how it works and the limits of this collaborative, volunteer-produced internet encyclopedia. Nowadays, Wikipedia has over 55 million articles in over 300 different languages. But everything started with a single post titled Hello World, published by American founder Jimmy W...

You may have seen it on the news, on social media, or even on the tube: hundreds of people riding the underground with no trousers on, in the middle of winter. On Sunday the 7th of December London commuters braved the cold to strip off to their underwear for this unusual event. The No Trousers Tube Ride, as it is officially called, is an annual event that takes place on the first Sunday of January...

The idea might seem like something out of a fantasy, but “Foreign Accent Syndrome” is a genuine, albeit very rare, neurological condition! It sees a person begin to speak with an accent different to the one they had prior to having a stroke; one which makes them sound like they come from an entirely different country! Since the first case was discovered in France in 1907, there have only been abou...

According to an August 2023 report by human resources company MBO Partners, the number of Americans considering themselves digital nomads increased by 131% between 2019 and 2022. That means they can travel worldwide while staying connected to their work wherever they are. The Covid-19 pandemic led to remote work being normalised, when it had already been growing thanks to factors like globalisatio...