TV Fact Checkers "Behind every smart TV show, there is a tireless script coordinator, technical adviser, researcher or producer who makes sure the jargon is right, the science is accurate and the pop culture references are on-point." This week, Wired "is speaking with fact-checkers behind the fall TV season’s geekiest shows."
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posted by zarq
on Sep 22, 2011 -
72 comments
Did you know that two guys once flew a Cessna for 64 days, without landing? They
apparently refuelled from a moving pickup truck
with a hose. Did you also know of the monks from Mt. Hiei, Japan who run 900 marathons in 6 years? To qualify, they do 30 km. a day for 100 consecutive
days. I did not know these things when I woke up on Friday, but
Now I Know.
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posted by Cobalt
on Sep 19, 2011 -
27 comments
In
Sizing Up Sperm, people dressed in all white literally act out the role of sperm in the race to become one with the egg, running through valleys, squeezing through spirals, battling Leukocytes and much more. The results are stunning and the program airs this Sunday, March 14 on National Geographic. It just so happens that Slate also got in on the ejaculation meme, and delivered an article on a story of sperm donors and DNA tracing in
Are Sperm Donors Really Anonymous Anymore? [
via]
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posted by netbros
on Mar 13, 2010 -
26 comments
Health Insurance Reform Reality Check. The White House has just launched a new site to attempt to counter concerns arising from the various factual distortions, misrepresentations and wild-eyed fears that some participants in the ongoing health care reform debate have loudly been voicing lately.
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posted by saulgoodman
on Aug 10, 2009 -
276 comments
Who are Muslims? Gallup has conducted a poll "in 40 predominantly Muslim nations and among significant Muslim populations in the West. It is the first set of unified and scientifically representative views from 1.3 billion Muslims globally." They'll be parsing and interpreting this data for years, but for the time being, they've offered some of their key results
online and
in print. See also, the
Muslim-West Facts Initiative. (
via)
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posted by anotherpanacea
on Jul 28, 2008 -
37 comments
FBI 101 -- "Essentials for Writers," an "exciting and informative" interactive workshop for writers being offered to members of my union -- the Writers Guild of America, East - by the FBI Office of Public Affairs and FBI New York. ... -- Very interesting account of a workshop the FBI puts on for writers in NY.
What's in it for the FBI?
...The only question we have for you is 'Will it show us in a good light?'" ...
posted by amberglow
on Jun 9, 2007 -
13 comments
TriviaFilter: 100 things we didn't know last year --a roundup of the best? of the year from BBC News' 10 things weekly column. ...
20. Sex workers in Roman times charged the equivalent price of eight glasses of red wine....
57. The word "time" is the most common noun in the English language, according to the latest Oxford dictionary. ...
posted by amberglow
on Dec 28, 2006 -
50 comments
As American As Apple Pie What Exactly? What food is truly American? Professor Louis Grivetti, of the University of California at Davis, provides a set of excellent, discussion-settling answers, packed with reliable and curious facts. (Be sure to click on the fascinating "
Did You Know?" links at the bottom of each of the 10 classic American food groups.) How many Europeans know, for instance, that tomatoes, potatoes,
corn, peppers, artichokes and lima beans all came from America? Not much supposedly ancestral Mediterranean cooking could get by without tomatoes, potatoes and peppers...
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Jan 28, 2003 -
44 comments
